


Two to Tango (Sequel to 'Show me your smile')

by DestinyxDarkness



Series: The rebellion to the Alpha/Beta/Omega universe [2]
Category: Battle Universe (Youtube), Borderlands (Video Games), Get Good Gaming (Youtube), Team Edge (Youtube)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Attempted Kidnapping, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Poisoning, Romance, Science Fiction, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2020-02-04 02:07:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 50
Words: 189,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyxDarkness/pseuds/DestinyxDarkness
Summary: Mila Tanthree looks for a job with P.W.C., a company that prides itself on having a personalised workforce for any situation, anywhere. Hence the name, Personalised Workforce Company.It is a smaller company than most, comprised of a total of around thirty workers in total, with each one having a talent or particular knack for military style jobs. This was the first tip-off.As she is introduced to various members of the company, she catches a couple of them referring to something happening in eighteen years time, as well as using a different company name when talking about the place they work at. This was the second tip-off.The third and final tip-off came when her soon to be new employer offers her a job not as a financier (The job she had applied for) but as an undercover agent.(Does not require having the read the previous book to understand everything in this book, but there are some jokes and references to the previous book in this series, and does tie into the timeline of the series heavily)





	1. Hey look Ma, I made it

**Record one- Legalities**

 

Alpha, Beta and Omega. Three different classes that you could be born into in our particular part of the universe, each having their strengths and weaknesses.

Alpha are people with increased testosterone flowing through their veins, making it so that their muscles and bodies could grow in strength to awe inspiring levels. The downside to this testosterone was of course that it seemed to hang around inside their system, including their brains, so they have a much harder time thinking logically. I guess some people would say that they can't think of the consequences of their actions, but I think I'd just say that they have a more difficult time doing so.

Beta are people who aren't particularly born with more or less testosterone, but they are always gifted with one particular talent that they can do better than anyone else. Unless they were to run into someone who had the same talent as them, in which case it would probably come down to who had been training for longer.

Omega were the opposite of Alpha, in the case that they were born with extremely low levels of testosterone. So while they had the hardest time gaining muscles, they always could keep a clear head in any situation. A lot of Omega end up as scientists or strategists, but sadly aren't always respected as much by the hot headed Alpha.

I was lucky, in my humble opinion, to be born as an Omega. Due to this, I graduated from my highschool on Alfu with the highest of honours, and I was able to get a job at a bank almost immediately. After being let go of my job a week or so ago, I looked for a new job in a similar sort of position.

Eventually a job position opened up at a company calling itself Personal Workforce Company (Or P.W.C. for short) that offered a job for a financier. I applied for the position, and almost immediately (A day or so after I had applied) got a response from someone who asked me to come in for an interview. So far, everything was going fine for me as I waited, except for...

 _"I probably should have dressed differently"_ I thought to myself as I looked down at my black clothing nervously. The fact it was velvet as well probably wouldn't help first impressions either.  _"God, why didn't I think of this?! It's bad enough that most people look at my makeup and think I'm useless because I look like a goth!"_

I couldn't really do much else than fret quietly to myself, not really daring to break the silence in the waiting room of this company, settling for just tapping my foot up and down in a nervous trance. The calm blues on the wall weren't really helping.

"First time?"

I turned my head to look at the one other person hanging around in the waiting room, a refined looking woman with beautiful chocolate skin. Everything about her seemed to be professional, from her sleek blue business suit to the neat curls twirling down from her head.

"...What?"

"Applying for a job" She clarified, patiently smiling at me as I stared at her blankly for a moment. "Is it your first time?"

"Oh! Oh no, it isn't" I hurriedly said, laughing a lot as I waved the idea away. "I'm just worried that some people will look at my clothing or makeup and assume things"

"Well, if it's any consolation, if they reject you based on that then you probably are better off not being here" She assured me, gently placing a hand on my shoulder before removing it once she saw me smile at her. Wow, even her red painted nails were neat and maintained, much better than my starry black ones. "Are you applying for the personal assistant position as well?"

"You'd be the most badass assistant ever" I complimented her, completely in awe of her. My complete enraptured attention just made her chuckle softly, shaking her head a little in what seemed to be mild disagreement. "But no, I'm applying to be their financier"

"We'll probably be seeing a lot of each other when we're both hired" She confidently decided, smiling softly to me. "If you ever need some extra counseling, my minor subject in university was in professional psychology"

"Nice! I, um... I didn't go to university myself, but that sounds cool!"

"Your parents couldn't afford it?"

I nodded my head at her, only to notice her eyes focusing entirely on someone coming towards us. I looked along with her, seeing a man around our height (Maybe slightly taller) making his way down the incredibly long hallway towards us. I was about to stand up to greet him, when the lady sitting next to me gently placed a hand on my lap to stop me.

”Don’t come across as too eager, he’ll call on us when he wants us” She mouthed at me, and I nodded my head eagerly to thank her for the advice. She did her best to hide a giggle, settling for a smile instead at me.

The man hadn’t even noticed our exchange, his nose completely stuck in a clipboard he was holding beneath him. From what I could make out of his short hair behind the clipboard, he had a very dark shade of blond, buzzed short except for on the top of his head, that held quite a number of locks all falling to one side of his face. When he finally lifted his eyes, I could spy his startling blue eyes flit over to the lady beside me, before coming back to rest on me.

”Mila Tanthree?” He correctly guessed, and I nodded my head while standing up. He seemed to smile softly at my enthusiasm, scribbling something on his clipboard before turning to the lady who had been sitting next to me. “My apologies and sincerest condolences, but your interview will be handled by my brother. He should be here shortly”

”Of course” She assured him, a firm but understanding nod directed towards him before she settled herself back into the chair. God, she was so cool!

”Now if you’ll follow me please, I’ll be asking you some questions and filling you in on the way to the others” He gestured down the hallway the way he came from before he started to walk in front of me. As I caught up to him, I managed to sneak a peek to the clipboard he was holding, seeing that it was just filled with average questions for the most part. "So, I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Matthias Frederick, and I will be your boss at the highest level as long as you remain at this company"

"Oh, so you're like the CEO?" I asked him, and for a brief second I could see some sort of emotion flash in his eyes from the term I used. It was gone as quickly as it came, so I really couldn't take note of what particular emotion it was.

"I think the term 'founder of the company' would fit better" He answered a little curtly, clearly wanting to get off the subject. "But yes, I'm the highest authority here. Do you have any other questions like that one?"

"Uh, who's second in command?" I asked him, and I could notice the friendly look in his eyes returning.

"If I'm indisposed, or somewhere else, then Tanner will be in charge. You'll likely run into him sometime as I introduce you to the others" Matthias took a corner as he explained that part of it, and I nearly got a fright from the tall broad-shouldered man barreling around the same corner as we were. Whoever it was seemed to have the same shade of hair as Matthias (It was even buzzed short like his), every part of his face looking very similar to him, except for a single long scar that ran around his right cheek and out his ear. I was about to conclude him as the scariest person I had encountered so far, right up until Matthias tapped him on the shoulder with his pen, making the taller man let out a small high pitched squeal. "You're late"

"Sorry man, you know how it is with Bryan and finding spare pills, so I had to help him out" He seemed to laugh as his friend poked him further with the pen, waving loosely over his shoulder as he talked about his other friend. His eyes seemed to then glance over to me, his own eyes looking like they were similar to Matthias' with only a hint of green showing up in them. "Is this the Blaire lady I'm supposed to be interviewing?"

"No, she's back in the waiting room. This is Mila Tanthree" Matthias proceeded to introduce me, looking a little startled after I offered the man in front of us a hand to shake. Whoever he was, he smiled somewhat cheekily at me, seeming to purposely shake my hand as gently as he could. "...I should have warned you Mila, but you don't really shake hands with Jfred in this company. He has a habit of being a bit... rough"

The man, now properly identified as Jfred, made an exaggerated look of shock towards Matthias at his claims. He looked like he was going to move his hand to shake Matthias around the shoulders, before the latter cleared his throat loudly.

"Blaire is still waiting for you, you know" Matthias pointed down the hallway me and him had come down with his pen, obviously wanting to hurry up the interaction. "Don't keep her waiting longer"

Jfred rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner, as if he was asking him to do something completely tiring and boring to him, but he managed to sneak in a wink at me as he passed me by. I craned my head back to look at him go down the hallway, but I quickly got distracted by the sound of Matthias walking onward, which made me race to catch up with him once more.

"Now, I only have one really important question for me to ask you" Matthias made a point to hover his pen over one particular line on his clipboard, his eyes looking at me sideways as we kept walking. "Most of this company is made up of Beta, me included, but we do have a small number of Alpha here. Do you have any past issues or problems with interacting with them?"

"Huh? Oh, no, not particularly" I thought briefly over my highschool days to see if anything really stood out, but nothing did. "Jfred's an Alpha, isn't he?"

"He is, much to my chagrin at some times of my life" Matthias sighed deeply, but he didn't seem to truly hold it in some form of anger. "Growing up with a younger brother that's taller than you is hard enough as it is, try having one that can literally throw you a number of metres in the air without breaking a sweat. What gave it away that he was?"

"...I don't know, he just seemed to be really, really careful with shaking my hand" I shrugged my shoulders, not really finding much other reason for my assumption. However, I did notice a tiny smile gracing Matthias' lips, him scribbling once more on the clipboard. I tried to spy a bit more on the clipboard, but he seemed to able to notice it this time, tilting the clipboard a little bit away so that I couldn't read from it anymore.

"So, just so that I can get a bit of an idea on how to handle people's heat weeks, you're a..."

"Omega"

"Omega, cool. Marvin and Kevin will be happy to hear that, they'll finally have another Omega in here that isn't a sibling" He said, scribbling one last thing on his clipboard before bringing it down to his side on his hip. We took one more left around a corner before we came to a set of metal steel doors. He pushed them open before I even had time to ask him what we were doing, him striding confidently into the room. Everyone I had met at this company was so cool! "Welcome to the main garage of this facility, where we keep our vehicles and all of our imported supplies"

I let out a low whistle as I looked straight up to the ceiling, seeing the impressive height of the place first. The second thing I noticed was the number of vehicles they held, a number of land vehicles all being manned with large amounts of weaponry on their frames, but the thing that drew my attention the most was a very large ship docked at the far end of the garage.

"Oh my god, is that a Valkyrie?!" I whispered excitedly, pointing over to the ship. I knew them quite well, if only for the fact my father had allowed me as a young child to ride in one with him. Matthias chuckled next to me, smiling at my childlike enthusiasm.

"That it is, but we've had it upgraded to hold a unit of five men rather than one" Matthias explained, and he could already see my face fall due to the fact it was no longer a one manned machine. For some reason, my downcast look was even funnier to him, laughing a little louder. "I know, I know, it's technically not a Valkyrie anymore because of it. But you need to understand, we don't have the training equipment necessary to get one of our guys piloting the original version"

"...That sucks man" I pouted heavily, and he nodded his head as he patted the top of my head like a father would to his son.

"I know kiddo, I know" Matthias ruffled my hair slightly once he lifted his hands away from my head, soon returning to looking around for someone or something in particular. He did eventually find them, his trajectory shifting slightly so that he was making a beeline for a group of three people.

There were two quite tall people in the group of three there, but for some reason my own attention was drawn to the shortest of the three, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap that was pitch black in colour. From what little I could make out of his hair, that was also a deep dark black colour, his eyes seemingly copying that as well with the darkest brown I had ever seen before. The biggest thing that would have stood out for most people straight away was the fact he seemed to have a lot of Asian features in his face, looking like he was heavily descended from a Japanese or Korean background.

"And I when I say I want you two to carry them carefully, I mean it this time. I'm serious, you shouldn't juggle boxes that have some form of explosive in them"

...And the second most obvious thing, was the fact his voice was as deep as it was smooth. It was like listening to a baritone singer, except... this guy wasn't singing. This was just his normal voice. I was... in rapture, just listening to him.

"Bobby, you have a minute?" Matthias asked the Asian man, but he already answered his own question before Bobby could respond. "Actually, no, never mind. You're going to have to make time if you don't have any for me"

Bobby rolled his eyes at Matthias' attitude towards him, but he was still smiling all the while. He must have dealt with this sort of bond with him for a while.

"Anything for my favourite cousin" Bobby said somewhat sarcastically, handing off some sort of checklist over to one of the two taller men he was talking to. I found myself getting confused on telling the difference between the two of them, instead focusing my attention back on Bobby. I got the fright of my life when I looked over at him right as he was looking at me, and he chuckled as he saw my abashed look. "So who's this?"

"Oh! I'm Mila!" I jumped into the conversation before Matthias could introduce me, holding out my hand towards Bobby for him to shake. His smile widened slightly as he cupped my hand with both hands and shook it, and I could distinctly see (and feel) that he had a fair amount of bicep muscles. "So, I don't know if this is the wrong thing to say to your co-worker when you first meet them... but man, your voice is awesome"

He chuckled, even that sounding so deep compared to the average person, his two friends seemed to find it as humorous as he did.

"I can't say that I remember being told that, so thanks!" Bobby eventually said, which I breathed a sigh of relief at. At least I didn't look stupid to them, that would have been the worst first impression. "I like your makeup by the way, it looks really cool"

"I know right!" One of the two similar looking guys said, peering closer to look at the black eye shadow around my eyes. "How do you even do that?"

"Patience. Lots and lots of patience" I laughed, which the three of them seemed to join in on. Matthias, who had been watching silently as we talked, cleared his throat loudly which made at least Bobby pay more attention to him.

"Right, now that you guys have all stopped flirting with each other, we can get back to business" Matthias sighed deeply, and the three guys all looked at each other confused at what he thought we were doing with each other. "Anyway Bobby, Mila here is applying for the position of assistant requisitions manager, so she'll be with you for a short test run to see how you two gel with each other"

I very nearly stared at the back of Matthias' head in shock, but only managing to stop myself before I did. To the others, it may have just looked like I glanced at the back of his head quickly, but internally I was freaking out. I was certain I had applied for the job as financier, so why was he telling Bobby that I was something else? I think he had even asked me earlier what I had applied for...

Oh... wait, no he hadn't.

I took a deep breath in and just decided to roll with it. I needed this job, and becoming a assistant requisitions manager might even be good for my C.V..

And besides, it means I would get to hang out with Bobby more. That's definitely a plus.

"Are you implying I need someone to assist me?" Bobby cheekily addressed Matthias, only to get whacked on the top of the head by the latter's clipboard. This seemed to still be funny, pain be damned.

"I'm not implying, I'm literally saying that" Matthias huffed, quickly scribbling something on his board before turning to the two friends next to him. "And what the heck do you two think you're doing? Don't you have stuff to take out?"

Matthias started to chase the both of them, brandishing his clipboard like it was some kind of weapon. The two guys ran away from him, but they were laughing in a carefree manner as if it was a harmless game of tag rather than their boss threatening to assault them with a piece of wood. Bobby just shook his head like it was another day at the office, before turning back over to me.

"Alright, let's start with getting basic food and medical supplies" Bobby pointed over to one side of the garage towards some sort of desk he had set up there, using a gentle hand touch against my arm to lead me that way. "If you get really good with that, then I can even upgrade you to the science experiments that some of our other members want. It should be able to free up some of my time so I can focus on some... heavier duty equipment"

So far, most of what he said did actually make some rudimentary sense, but it also seemed like it was a far more important task than most would assume a requisition manager would do. I glanced over at Bobby's face as he led me towards the desk, and saw how confident he looked with this.

Well, I had gotten myself into this mess on my own, so I had to now simply do my best.


	2. Then there's you

While I had originally gone into Bobby's teaching with a heavy dose of anxiety, that all started to slowly slip away with how thoroughly he explained things, down to the companies and extra suppliers that they currently held. Managing the money so that we wouldn't go broke was the easiest part for me to understand (Especially since that was supposed to be what I was doing originally), and I could eventually see Bobby realise that I was understanding everything faster than someone without my skill set. Due to this, I got the impression he could let loose much more around me, already sounding like he was comfortable with cracking the same sort of jokes he did with his other co-workers.

"Marvin, Kevin, I already told you both to be careful with those!" Bobby shouted around my shoulder at the two nearly identical men from before, but they just laughed it off as they continued to chuck boxes off one of the trucks. "If you blow one of them up, I'm not paying your medical bills!"

"What is even in those?" I couldn't help but ask him, the both of us now fully distracted by the two guys, both of whom Bobby had told me were brothers. In some distant in-law related way, Bobby had explained that they were his cousins. Something about them being his cousins-brothers in laws? Eh, it was confusing.

"A heavier duty version of fuel. Usually used for rockets on spaceships or to speed up jet boots, but we're hoping to use it to make one of our speed focused ships even faster" Bobby already excitedly started to talk about what it was, using some animated hand movements to refer to ships in the garage and imitating a really fast ship flying past. He was like a kid in a candy store, so much so that I started to giggle at his funny movements. "Of course, that's only really going to be an option if it doesn't blow up in their faces"

"I'm guessing that it's an explosive?"

"Only if it is in an airtight container, which it is right now. Hold on a moment" Bobby pointed over at the metal boxes that the two brothers were holding, before moving his hand over to a nearby part on his desk to grab a small metal disk that looked like it was only really useful to fidget with. With an almost expert hand, he flung the small metal disk through the air towards them, missing all other obstacles to smack lightly in one of the brothers hands as it was moving, all the way on the other side of the garage. "Don't make me throw pencils at you like last time!"

Marvin and Kevin, despite laughing again, did actually start to handle the boxes a lot more carefully than they had been doing, gently handing them down to each other and placing them neatly onto the floor. Meanwhile, I was completely blown away by the throw Bobby had just accomplished, turning my head to look at him in an awestruck manner.

"...How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That! Throwing that thing like an amazing god bringing down tiny metal disk shaped justice!" I excitedly started to chatter, this time it being Bobby that seemed to find my excitement chuckle worthy, not the other way around. I was even about to hop from foot to foot, but I managed to catch myself before I looked completely silly. "Is your talent, if you are a Beta, anything to do with baseball or something?"

His almost constant cheer seemed to suddenly leave, his smile at first being replaced with a surprised look, before that one got replaced with a downcast look, his eyes even following his mood and looking down at my black platform heels rather than my face.

"Oh, uh... no. I, um..." Bobby seemed to be unable to find the right words to explain what he was going to say, his entire demeanour screaming that he didn't actually like talking about this subject. I was about to just tell him it was fine and that he didn't have to answer my question, but he found his words before I found mine. "...I don't have a talent"

"...What?"

"I don't have a talent" Bobby sighed deeply, at least managing to look up in the general level of my face, but staring out over my shoulder rather than looking directly into my eyes. "I'm am a Beta, but no matter how many tests I took as a child and a teenager, there wasn't a single one that applied to me. We tried sports, arts and knitting, dancing, all general school subjects, languages, computers... you name it, we've likely tried it"

A Beta without a talent... I couldn't say I had ever heard of anything like that. But it wasn't like I could claim Bobby was lying to me, his emotions and feelings seemed way to real for that. Not to mention there was likely no benefit for him to lie about what his talent was.

Before I could even say anything further to reassure him that I didn't think any less of him, Marvin and Kevin sidled up to the both of us, the both of them looking incredibly sweaty.

"Sweaty hug time!" Kevin-or was it Marvin?- suddenly flung himself at Bobby, who reacted both with a grossed out manner and the usual laughter mixed in. Despite the fact Marvin(?) looked vastly taller and more muscly than Bobby, somehow the smaller man was able to keep him at arms bay very easily, it being very clear that Marvin(?) wasn't ever going to actually be able to achieve his goal of getting his cousin covered in sweat. "Hey come on man, let me love you!"

"I'm good, thanks"

"Oh! You two are Omega!" I suddenly came to the realisation of what class the darker skinned brothers were, the both of them turning their heads to look at me, the one next to me pouting slightly.

"Aw, what gave it away?" Kevin(?) gave away the truth quite easily, but his older brother looked almost shocked that his sibling didn't try to bluff his way out of it.

"Well, the sweat was a big give away to me. Nobody except for an Omega sweats that much with taking boxes out of a truck" I explained my first reasoning, ticking it off on my hand as Bobby finally managed to give Marvin(?) a somewhat gentle shove to get him off himself. "The second thing was the fact that Bobby, who's smaller than you two and a Beta, was easily keeping... Marvin away from him"

"I'm Kevin"

Dang it.

"Oops, my bad" I apologised straight away, lightly knocking the side of my head with an open hand to show that I wasn't going to forget which one was which. Bobby just seemed to find it funny. "But I have to admit, you guys look very buff. I would have assumed that you were both just skinnier Alpha if those hints didn't come along"

"We do have good gains, don't we?" Marvin(!) proudly boasted, curling his arm around to accentuate his bicep muscles. They weren't kidding, it looked very impressive for Omega. Marvin(!) seemed to notice me staring quite intently at it, soon slightly leaning towards me with his bicep, obviously holding it closer to me. "You want to touch it?"

"Yes please" I quickly said yes to the offer, something which made the three of them chuckle. Then again, I got the impression that these guys just were a happy bunch (Granted you didn't bring up talents with Bobby). "So, uh... how do I..."

"Just wrap your fingers around it so you can feel it when I tense and relax it" Marvin(!) loosely explained it, only to giggle when I actually quite eagerly put both my hands around it. He tensed it slightly under my fingertips, him chuckling softly when I made an awe struck noise. "You find muscles pretty cool?"

"I mean, yeah" I shrugged, giggling a little as I could feel my cheeks redden slightly.

"If you think his is impressive, you should feel Bobby's!" Kevin(!) suggested, shoving Bobby closer to me. Bobby just sighed good naturedly, already rolling up the sleeve on his right arm as he grinned to himself. "Trust me, his are even better"

I could already see that Kevin(!) was correct in his description, Bobby's bicep muscles looking larger than Kevin and Marvin's even when he didn't curl his arm around to make it more pronounced. He lifted his arm and allowed me to wrap my hands around his arm (I couldn't even close my hands around the entire circumference of it) before he actually curled his arm backwards, my hands being forced to slightly slip around as it increased.

"Wow..." I couldn't help but utter, completely enraptured by the tense muscles. Bobby himself seemed to be distracted, his eyes widened to a greater degree as he stared at my hands, almost whispering his following words.

"Whoa... your hands are so soft" Bobby whispered softly, his dark brown eyes stuck on my hands.

I was about to thank him for the compliment, but of course that had to be the exact moment that Matthias came back.

"I leave you guys for five minutes and you're already back to flirting with each other" Matthias sighed dramatically, moving his hand down to scribble something on the clipboard. Oh dear, that can't be good.

"We weren't-

"Sure Bobby, keep telling yourself that" Matthias waved him off, tapping me lightly on the shoulder and then pointing off in a different direction with the same pen, clearly wanting me to follow him. "Come along, I'll introduce you to our main equipment maker"

I gave the three guys a wave before I dashed off after Matthias, not really wanting to upset my potential boss any further. Right as I came up to the side of him, I could manage to spy at least one thing off his clipboard.

'Is able to charm people on her first meeting with them'.

...Odd.

"So, who are we meeting next?" I tried to play off the fact I had peeked, instead looking forward down the hallway we were travelling. Right as we turned around the corner, I could spy him scribble another thing on the clipboard. 'Is able to gain information from others in a covert manner'. 

"Just our resident grump of the company" Matthias remained vague, but kept pushing on towards one more set of steel doors. From what I could spy of the room we were entering, there was a lot of steam and smoke coming out of it. And heat, a whole lot of heat. "But I wouldn't worry too much, he's not actually that scary"

The moment he opened the doors a rush of heat rushed out towards us, the steam and smoke all vanishing out of the room past us. Almost immediately, an angry voice shouted out from the middle of the room at Matthias.

"Dammit Matthias, I've told you multiple times not to open the door when I'm working! I was tempering metal!"

"Temper it later, there's someone I have to introduce to you"

"I CAN'T TEMPER IT AGAIN! IT'S NOW A LOW TEMPERATURE TEMPER RATHER THAN A HIGH ONE! A SPRING THAT IS AS HARD AS A ROCK BUT DOESN'T BOUNCE BACK IS USELESS!"

"Just put it in a shrapnel bomb" Matthias seemed completely unphased by the rage coming from whoever was in the steam, even suavely dodging a piece of metal that was flung at him. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be the spring that had been insufficiently tempered. "Or use it as a projectile, that works"

As much as Matthias had assured me that this guy wasn't scary, he kind of was. Once the steam finally cleared, I could spy a man with dirty blonde hair looking back at us, his beefy arms crossed over his chest. In fact, everything about him was beefy, he literally was well built in every aspect. Shoulders, biceps, calves, thighs... even his neck seemed to match the ensemble. If I saw him in the street, I likely would have just assumed he was a lumberjack from how robust he was built.

In short, quite awkwardly so seeing as he was possibly going to be my coworker, he was my type.

"Fine then, seeing as you disturbed me anyway, you might as well get it over with" He huffed, moving towards us to retrieve the spring he had thrown. On his way back to the giant anvil in the middle of the room, he seemed to notice me on my way back, his grey-green eyes quickly sizing me up. "I'm guessing she's the one you want me to meet?"

"No, I just brought a random stranger to you for no reason" Matthias rolled his eyes, but I decided to move my hand out for the guy to shake in order to get myself on the right foot with him. His eyes seemed to express mild surprise at my handshake, but he did actually softly grip it and shook it once in a firm manner. His hands were quite rough, likely down to the fact he had worked with heat and in this forge like room for a while, but they were also warmer than I had expected. "This is Mila Tanthree, and she's going to be joining us as a bodyguard. Mila, this perpetual downer is Connor"

Connor looked at Matthias as if he was insane, a look that I had honestly would have copied as well if I hadn't known it was a bad idea. First he had told Bobby that I was a assistant requisitions manager, now he was telling Connor that I was going to be a bodyguard for them. Yikes, this guy's memory was turning out to be awful.

Connor had gone from looking at Matthias as if he was stupid to once again sizing me up, glancing down to the platform heels I was wearing, slowly drifting up from my thigh high fishnet stockings to my short black skirt, up my velvet jumper and stopping on the black choker around my neck. I would have almost been flattered with his attention if my job wasn't on the line if he pointed out Matthias' mistake.

"You wouldn't believe how many people underestimate me because of my size" I winked at Connor, smiling at him as if it was completely believable. While he had clearly been under the impression that I could never be a bodyguard before, he seemed to consider my words, albeit slowly.

"...Makes sense, I guess" He shrugged his shoulders, obviously not believing it a hundred percent, but at least not really thinking it so outlandish that he called me out on it.

"Sweet, so just see if you can run her over the things you've made. Who knows, maybe there's something that you thought was a piece of junk but she can actually use it" Matthias gently nudged me forward to him with a gentle hand on the back, before turning around and heading back out the way we had come, leaving the both of us with one final set of words before disappearing around the corner. "I'll be back in a little while, so don't get into too much trouble"

It was a little awkward, being left there with Connor, as it seemed he was just as unsure about how to start a conversation with me as I was with him. Instead of actually starting a conversation, he started to wipe his hands off on his blacksmith type apron, so I decided to try and start talking myself.

"So... I'm guessing your talent is blacksmithing?" I asked him, and he sighed deeply at my question.

"What gave it away? The entire room that's literally a forge?" He responded scathingly at first, and I couldn't help but shy away from him by taking a step back and looking away from him. He almost immediately spluttered and tripped over himself when he realised he actually hurt my feelings however. "Wait, shoot, I didn't mean to... Ugh, god. Look, I'm sorry, okay? I just... I'm used to being sarcastic and cocky with the others and I..."

"Hey hey, it's okay! I'm just trying to test the waters to see how you guys act and interact with each other" I tried my best to reassure him, gently waving away the concerns he was highlighting. I brought back the same smile I had used when I had winked at him, trying my best to cheer the mood up. While he didn't smile in return, his shoulders did seem to relax a little. Hey, it was something.

"So what equipment would you usually carry in your old bodyguard job? Some kind of spray to put in people's eyes, a baton, you name it" He asked me, moving towards a hefty chest in one corner of the room. Likely the one that he held a lot of completed projects in.

"Oh, um... do you have tasers?" I asked him, trying to hide my inexperience out of my voice.

"Ah, makes sense. Electrical equipment probably would work best for you, since it would be lightweight and quiet. Works good if you want to be sneaky too" Connor began to mumble to himself, clearly having some sort of idea of a weapon that he would give to me. "What kind did you use before? Long range shooter, stun baton, shock collars maybe..."

"...Those personal tasers?"

My answer seemed to surprise him, his look mirroring the one he had given Matthias when he had told him I was applying to be a bodyguard. Wide eyes, and an open mouth as if I had grown two heads.

"You're joking" He stated what he believed to be the truth, very slowly watching my observation. I shook my head just as slowly as he had said his sentence, and his look didn't waver at all. "The small personal ones?"

I nodded my head.

"The ones that literally require you to stand next to someone to use them? The ones that can shock you as well as long as they are touching you at the same time?" He asked again, and once again I nodded. He shook his own head in disbelief, turning to the chest at his feet and beginning to rifle through it. "No wonder you left your other job! Hold on, I have something that will be amazing for you"

He then turned around with a sleek grey cylinder, somewhere around my arm’s length, and handed it specifically with one end facing away from me. It had a single red button on one end of the cylinder, at the far end of it.

"Alright, now I'll run you through it simply because it might be a new thing to you" Connor explained, shifting himself so that he stood directly behind me. His rough and calloused hand soon gently covered mine, using his wrist and fingers to guide me. "You press the red button at the end right here, which unlocks the main chamber"

A clicking noise came from the end of it, the entire inside part of the cylinder sliding a little towards the right. He then tightened his grip on my hand, as though he was soon going to do something snappy with his hands. For a brief moment, I could feel the muscles in his arm tense against my own... and let me tell you, his muscles could give Bobby a run for his money. Definitely a strong Beta.

"Now we're going to quickly flick out the end with a sharp snap, like this"

Connor took my arm upwards, before quickly swiping downwards in a sharp motion as though we were trying to karate chop something. The moment we did so, the cylinder extended to twice its size, the second half of it suddenly sparking bright ribbons of electricity all around it. I very nearly dropped the thing in surprise, but Connor's hand remained firm around mine, allowing me to marvel at the light blue arcs of lightning.

"Wow..." I marvelled at the currents, them seeming more magical than dangerous to me. Connor chuckled a little, the single note sounding very calm and relaxed as he held my hand still to keep me safe. "Did you make this yourself?"

"Oh, no, we bought this one. All I did was tinker with it a little to increase the electrical current" Connor explained, his tone sounding a lot more chipper and bright now that he was talking about something he really enjoyed. It was nice to hear him like that. "It's delivers a stronger jolt to whoever is on the other end, and it increases these sparks here to decrease the chance of someone being able to dodge your swing, but as long as you keep it pointing away from yourself then you'll be safe"

"Feels like the one keeping me safe is you" I giggled, and I could almost hear him suddenly choke, his arm seeming to go as red as I imagined his cheeks were going.

"Oh! I'm sorry, we should probably close this" Connor explained, before tilting the stun baton upwards, allowing the cylinder to slide back in. "After it's slotted back in, you keep holding it upright and then you press the red button again"

The same clicking noise occurred as we heard earlier, the cylinder now sliding to the left instead to snap shut. Once it was securely put away, he released my hand and backed out of my personal space.

"Well, that's one of our electrical equipment. I could always give you another one that might be a bit easier to handle if you like, should you be hired" Connor said, holding his hand out for me to return the stun baton back to him. Once I reached my hand out to give it back, he seemed to linger on my hands for a second, sort of like how Bobby had done before. "...Your hands"

"They're soft?" I cheekily asked him, but he shook his head softly. A small twinkle of excitement seemed to grow in his eyes, before turning around and grabbing something from the same chest that he had taken the stun baton from. When he turned back around, he had something new in his hands, a small black glove that seemed to have some kind of steel tip at the ends of the fingers.

"Your hands might just be the right fit for this glove I made a while ago" Connor told me, an element of unbridled excitement beginning to bubble up in his voice. "I had made them for Matthias with a bit of a smaller fit that that it couldn't slip off, but I made made them too small for him. Would you do me the honour of trying them on?"

I gladly held out my hand for him, already feeling the soft fabric as he pulled it over my skin. He was a lot more gentle than I had expected, paying careful attention to his tender touch. Once it was on my hand, he fiddled a little with the steel tips to ensure they weren't going to shift off my fingers, but they fit on the ends of my digits like the glove had been made specifically for me.

"You made these bits at the ends, didn't you?" I asked him, admiring the neat craftsmanship and sleek feel of the glove. He nodded his head absentmindedly, clearly still focused on making sure it was the right fit on my hand. "They're beautiful"

"Wha-I, um... most people don't call them beautiful" Connor spluttered a little, clearly not used to the type of compliments I gave. I almost giggled as I could spy the red in his cheeks start to appear, his eyes looking off to the side rather than my face. "You know, the average person would probably call them... I don't know, strong?"

"But they are beautiful!" I proudly displayed the small metal tips, which on closer inspection seemed to look similar to cat claws. "I can tell you put a lot of time and dedication into them, so you should take some more pride in how astounding they are"

Connor's hands still lingered on mine, still somehow fiddling with the glove despite the fact I was certain there was nothing to improve. It almost seemed like he was just busying himself with my hands, as if he was still trying to avoid what I had said to him. He did eventually lift his head back up however, at least enough so that I could see his grey-green eyes once more.

"...Thanks" He softly uttered, his eyes returning to my hand now that he wasn't avoiding my compliment. He finally had stopped fiddling with the glove, his entire attention now looking at how it fit rather than anything else. "It actually fits your hand really well. I probably could sharpen the claws to a sharper degree to give you an instant swipe into someone's arm... and I could even maybe attach a pulley system into the fingers to operate a sort of grappling hook at the end"

"You really enjoy making things, huh?" I asked him, a smile breaking out onto my face without meaning to. He shrugged his shoulders at my claim, but I took that as a better answer than if he were to deny it. "I like it when you talk about the ideas you might have, you seem happier while doing so"

Connor seemed to ponder this statement for a bit, before opening his mouth...

"Howdy howdy! Connor my main man! How's the wife, how's the kids?"

...Only to be promptly interrupted by someone strutting into the room like they owned the place.

"...I'm not married, and I don't have kids. I've told you this a million times over Paul" Connor sighed, taking his warm hands away from mine. "And I told you that your ship parts would be taking a number of weeks"

"And?"

"I told you that yesterday" Connor sighed dramatically, which gave me the opportunity to turn around and look at the person who had just waltzed in. It seemed to be a person who was just slightly taller than Connor, his own hair a deep dark brown that was relatively short as it framed his head. His eyes seemed to be a hazel, mainly a light brown with a slight dash of green. My own attention being directed towards him seemed to be enough for him to notice me in return, a confident smile being directed towards me.

"And who's this tall glass of water?" He seemed to put on a heavily exaggerated country accent, lifting one of his hands to the top of his head as though he was pretending to tip a cowboy hat slightly downwards in a greeting. I couldn't help but laugh at his silly display, which seemed to please him greatly. In contrast, my laughter seemed to make Connor roll his eyes.

"This is Mila, she's applying to be a bodyguard with us" Connor introduced me, giving me a gentle pat on the shoulder to either reassure me or to indicate who he was talking about. Who knows, maybe it was both. "Mila, this is Paul. Better known as the clown of the business"

Almost as if to prove Connor's statement, Paul did a funny twirl on the spot before shuffling himself closer to me with a hand extended to shake mine, with the one hand still hanging around his head like he was tipping a cowboy hat.

"Pleasure's all mine milady" Paul let me shake his hand as he continued on with his heavy country accent, smiling even wider when he saw me giggling behind my hand. "Name's Paul, flight extraordinaire. You name it, I can fly it"

"Just as long as you don't mind that he tinkers way too much with his ships" Connor whispered to me, but made sure to say it loud enough that Paul could hear him perfectly fine. "They're deathtraps"

"Hey, you take that back! My vulture is a work of art!"

"You-

"Wait, did you just say a vulture?" I cut off Connor by accident, my excitement returning about old military vehicles. "You mean the old land speeder bikes that went out of commission years ago?"

"Yes ma'am, that's correct! I converted an old rinky-dink vulture into an air and space worthy ship that has been reinforced with high strength materials so that it can plow through ships like a living missile" Paul proudly boasted, his voice sounding chipper and excited about the subject we were discussing. I couldn't help but look enthusiastic as well, especially with the memories that my father had allowed me to ride on a vulture when I was very young. "I'm surprised, I didn't think many people actually still knew about those old speeder bikes"

"My dad was an engineer for the military, he always worked on ships or land vehicles for them. I occasionally was allowed to come along and ride a couple of them" I told them quite happily, enjoying the trip down memory lane with them. "I'd love to see your vulture some time!"

"And I'd love to show it to you some time!" Paul agreed readily with the idea, grinning widely as he shook my hand once more to seal the deal. Connor rolled his eyes a little more behind him, but he didn't actually seem mad at either of us. "Whoops, looks like Matt thinks I took up too much of your time. You better go and meet the others"

Paul twirled me around, just enough so that I could see Matthias standing there, clicking his pen impatiently as he waited for me. I hurriedly thanked the two guys for their time, and I got a thumbs up and a grunt (No real surprises for who did what) from them before I slotted myself back into line next to Matthias. We already started to dash off to some other part of the building, and I felt a little bit like he was just a tornado blasting through, taking me from place to place in a blinding speed.

"Did you enjoy hanging out with them?" Matthias suddenly asked me as we rounded another corner, and I peered at him out of the side of my eyes to see if I could tell if he was being serious or not.

"Yeah, they both seemed like very cool guys" I decided to answer honestly, an answer which he seemed to like, as he smiled once more and wrote something down on his clipboard again. "So who are we going to see now?"

"Our main fitness coordinator, or just the person known as 'the parkour guy' to us. Trust me, you'll probably like him very much"


	3. Got me runnin' round

"And here's the last of our biggest rooms, the rest are all either contained in the hallways or in small nooks around the building" Matthias explained, throwing open another set of doors like he owned the place. Which, I suppose wasn't all too far off. "We mainly use this room for parkour training and physical fitness"

The room seemed to be a multi-level one, with several large concrete pillars and walls set up around the area, as well as various wooden structures that sloped up to different floors around the room. There was a constant feeling of safeness in the room however, accentuated by the feeling of the soft padded floors, likely to give someone a softer landing in case they fell from one of the higher floors. While I was focusing mainly on the wild and wacky things around the room, Matthias was clearly making a beeline for two people in the center of the room, the both of them looking over some sort of checklist in their hands.

"You seriously need to track down Paul for me Tanner, this is the third training session that he's missed in the last two months" One of the two men sighed, running a hand tiredly through his pitch black hair. Unlike Bobby and Connor, this man had the main focus of his bodily build-up of muscles in his legs, a pair of impressive thighs that were easily noticeable in the jeans he was wearing. Of the slightly tanned skin that he did show, he did seem to have at least somewhat built up his arms; possibly from a previous hobby he had that involved throwing or catching things often. Basketball maybe?

"He does seem to have some supernatural knack for being able to tell when someone is wanting him for something serious, only to avoid us" Said the person standing beside the other guy, stroking his own strawberry blonde beard slowly, a slight grumble rumbling from his throat in clear annoyance. This guy, whoever he was, was by far the tallest person I had seen so far (Barring Jfred), slightly dwarfing me with about a head's height worth of difference between us. And that was even me with my heels on, goodness.

"Tanner, Gunner, pay attention" Matthias sharply called for their cooperation, both men turning their heads already to see him. They didn't seem in such a hurry, turning their entire bodies around at their own pace rather than the hurried clicking that Matthias was doing in an attempt to make them speed up. "Mila, the idiot on the left is Tanner, my second in command. The other idiot on the right is Gunner, he's the one who makes sure the staff keep to a more regular exercised schedule, as much as Paul does his best to flaunt that. Now, you two-

"And this is our training area" Another person said directly behind Matthias, sharply drawing all four of our attention towards the people entering through the doorway. It seemed to be Jfred, him using wide sweeping arm gestures to demonstrate the parts of the room to Blaire, who looked on with mild enthusiasm and a perfectly professional demeanour about her. Matthias however, seemed to not be happy with what Jfred was doing, effectively abandoning me with the two still somewhat strangers to go and yell at him.

"You can't just follow behind me and Mila and somehow call that a proper introduction! Did you even take the questionnaire with you to ask her the necessary questions?!"

"Eh, I was just planning on winging it"

"WINGING IT?!"

Matthias launched into a tirade at Jfred, the latter looking as if it was just another day at the office to him, a cheeky grin on his face as he sent a shrug to Blaire beside him. Blaire seemed to be taking the strange dynamic between the brothers quite amicably, just seeming like she giggled and then waited patiently for the two of them to sort things out with each other.

"Typical Matthias, rolls in the room like he's in a hurry, then dashes off to something else before he even is done explaining the first thing. Sort of like a twister that occasionally comes by" Tanner nudged Gunner in the side as he said this, making the latter snort in laughter in some kind of mild agreement. He shrugged his shoulders for the most part, extending his hand out to reach forward to me, clearly trying to be friendly towards me. "Let's try that again, shall we? My name's Tanner"

"Mila" I put simply, hoping that the two of them were just going to gloss over my job application. I mean, which one of the two was I supposed to pretend I was doing? For all I knew, Matthias would suddenly sweep back around and tell them that I was going to be their expert rock climber or something else. "And I guess that makes you Gunner?"

"The one and only" Gunner grinned at me, a slight amount of pearly whites showing through his smile as he shook his hand. He seemed to notice the gentle way that I shook his hand, as he glanced down at my arm for a brief moment before making a comment on it. "Forgive me for assuming, but you wouldn't happen to be an Omega, would you?"

"I am. How could you tell?" I asked him out of curiousity, hoping his answer wasn't going to be because he assumed that I couldn't be anything else with my figure. It might not exactly always be wrong to assume that a skinny person was an Omega, but it wasn't always so nice to classify people like that.

"I've shook a lot of hands before with people here at our company, and your grip just kind of reminds me of Marvin and Kevin rather than all the Beta" Gunner shrugged, but his reasoning was a nice one rather than assuming, like he said he was afraid to do.

"Really? I was going to guess she was an Omega from the scent coming off her" Tanner off handedly remarked next to Gunner, making a slight show of sniffing the air around him to show what he was talking about. "Very sweet"

It was true, I had been told by many people in the past that I had a very sweet smell, just like the majority of Omega normally would have. The only problem with that was of course the fact that Omega, including myself, couldn't really smell ourselves. It wasn't generally a problem for us, seeing as most Beta weren't very well known for their smelling prowess, but it occasionally could land us in trouble with Alpha, who had  _very_ good noses.

"Dude, you know I don't smell people as good as you do. Doesn't it ever bother you that you can smell better than most of the other Beta?" Gunner sighed from next to him, before shaking his head at Tanner's simple shrug to his question. "Ah, well it doesn't really matter. Do you want to come and try out some of our courses on the upper floor here?"

"Sure, why not?" I enthusiastically jumped up and down on the spot, my heels digging a little into the padded floor from my jumps.

Gunner seemed happy at my excited manner, waving for me to follow behind him and Tanner as they began to climb a wooden ramp up to the second floor. Once we were finally there, the both of them seemed to head over to a set of random platforms, clearly put in the middle of a gap to be used to jump across. There were several others hanging around the room, but this one at least seemed to be their simplest obstacles.

"These are set up a certain distance from each other, just far enough away so that you can't just easily jump across them without any effort put into it, but close enough to each other so that you don't really have to go into a full sprint to get across" Gunner explained the two platforms mainly to me, as Tanner seemed to already know what they were. "Here, I'll go first. If you don't want to try it after I do it, then that's perfectly fine"

With little to no hesitation, Gunner ran up to the edge of our side of the platform before leaping confidently to the first platform. The wooden structure seemed to creak a little when he landed on it, but it didn't wobble or wiggle at all under his feet. In quick succession from the first one, he then proceeded to do a back-flip from the first platform to the second, before doing a final corkscrew looking twist in his final jump to the platform on the other side to face us. I couldn't help but clap in absolute awe of his skills, and he chuckled softly to himself before taking a small bow towards us.

"Show off" Tanner joked on my side of the platform, before taking a couple of steps backwards to run up for his jumps. "Here's hoping I can actually stick the landing this time"

A little more wary than Gunner had done, Tanner ran up and jumped cleanly to the first platform, but he didn't do anything special between the first and second platform like Gunner had done. Only when he jumped from the second platform did he attempt something, doing a front flip in the final gap before shakily landing on his feet on the other side.

"Nice man, you're getting better!" Gunner praised him, clapping one or two quick claps to show how impressed he was. "Still too scared to attempt a flip between them?"

"That's probably something I can only do when I can actually flip without wiping out half the time" Tanner laughed nervously, before turning around to look at my nervous expression. "Do you want to try it Mila?"

"Quick question; do I have to do a flip?" I asked them, pointing down at my heels to show an element of why that idea might go wrong. "I'm not sure I could do a flip on flat feet, let alone with these heels on"

"Hah, no, you don't have to do a flip" Gunner waved that idea away, clearly thinking it was way too early for me to even attempt that. "Just try jumping across, that should already be a challenge as it is"

Considering I had much less muscles than either of them, that statement held even more weight with me than he probably realised. Even with all that, I did at least want to attempt it.

I took a number of steps back, probably way more than Tanner had even done, before running full speed towards the gap. My first jump seemed to go alright, landing in the center of the first platform before I pushed off as hard as I could to the following one. I could tell I was almost short in my second jump, as I nearly missed the second platform, only just barely managing to kick off from that one. With a heavy wobble, I managed to land on the edge of the far platform, nearly sliding backwards off the thing itself before Gunner managed to catch me around the chest to pull me back to safety.

"Congrats! You made it!" Gunner praised me heartily, clapping me somewhat softly on my shoulder as I came down from my adrenaline high. He held his hand out for a high five, which I gladly gave him. "You did way better than when Marvin and Kevin first tried that one, they couldn't even reach the second platform"

"Honestly, she should get bonus points for doing that in heels man. I can't even stand up straight in heels, let alone run and jump in them" Tanner seemed to agree with Gunner quite easily, and I giggled at the thought of the burly looking man in heels. He seemed to notice my giggle, smiling at me as he dug around in his back pocket. "Here, do you want to try one of my self-made candies? It's the most I can offer you as a prize"

"Sure!"

"Wait no, you really don't-

I stuck the yellow coloured candy in my mouth before Gunner could finish his sentence, causing the Latino looking man to abruptly shut his mouth when he realised his warning came too late. It didn't take long for a strong tropical kind of fruit to take the forefront of the flavour, but there then was a very strong secondary flavour, one that definitely didn't seem to belong to the other.

"...Is that salt?" I couldn't help but ask Tanner, further sucking on the lolly to try and figure out why it was there. Tanner nodded his head, seemingly telling me that the salt wasn't a mistake in the lolly, but purposely intended. "And... mango?"

"Pineapple, but I did stick a slight hint of mango in there to counteract the strong taste of salt" Tanner sort of validated what I said, and I nodded my head slowly if only to tell him that I understood what he had said. "I made it with the idea in mind that people like to have tropical drinks while on islands or beaches, so you can close your eyes and imagine yourself on holiday when you need a moment to yourself"

I did as he suggested, closing my eyes for a moment and just letting the flavours settle into my mind. The salt then suddenly felt as if it belonged, enhancing rather than hindering the strong pineapple flavour, and in that moment it truly felt like I had been transported to a tropical beach with a fruity drink in my hands.

"Oh my god, that's amazing" I managed to say past the lolly, opening my eyes and smiling at Tanner. Gunner looked confused on how I could see it that way, as he clearly had tried in the past without liking it, but Tanner looked very pleased with himself on the success. "Is that the only one you have made?"

"I'm working on a couple of others, but that's the first one I've really succeeded in so far" Tanner told me, digging around in his back pocket and putting one of them in his own mouth.

" 'Succeeded' " Gunner put up air quotes around the word, clearly in disagreement with the both of us about the lolly, but he at least seemed to be in a jovial and joking mood rather than upset.

"Don't be jealous just cause the new girl likes my candy" Tanner joked around with Gunner, punching him somewhat roughly in the side. It clearly wasn't all that rough, as it only elicited a laugh instead of a groan of pain from the other man. "But speaking of you Mila, what are you actually applying for?"

Oh boy, there was the question I had been hoping to avoid. I honestly was unsure which one of the three job titles I was supposed to mention, seeing as I had lied so far to at least five others about what I was going for.

"...I don't know" I decided to admit to them both, seeing the both of their eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"You don't know?" Gunner double checked, and I nodded my head as well as giving a verbal confirmation.

"I don't know. I applied to be a financier here, but so far Matthias has introduced me as an Assistant requisitions manager and as a bodyguard, both of which are not the thing I had applied for" I explained as best I could, grateful to finally be telling someone the truth. The both of them looked at each other, the single glance telling me a lot more than I had originally thought it would. The look seemed to say that this wasn't actually something confusing to them, quite the opposite, it seemed as if they knew what this was supposed to be.

"...And what did you tell other people when you were introduced as those things?" Tanner slowly asked me, watching my reaction very carefully.

"Huh? Oh, uh... I didn't want to get in trouble, so I sort of just played along with it in case Matthias just happened to have a bad memory or something similar"

The both of them then cast one last glance to each other, smiling as though they were pleased with my answer. It still didn't make any sense to me, but at least neither of them seemed to be mad at me.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, just go along with what Matthias says and you should be fine" Gunner said somewhat enigmatically, doing not much more than winking at me. "Trust me, you're doing good"

"Oh... I mean, if you say so" I said a little unsure, but I decided to take their words for it.

"Mila! Tanner! Gunner! Come on, we're going to the main meeting room!" I heard Jfred shout from the lower floors before I could hear a set of steel doors opening and closing, it sounding like the three of us were the only ones left in the room.

"We'd probably better get going" Gunner nodded towards the set of doors that we could see, moving forward to the gap we had just crossed and jumping down to the ground floor onto the soft padded mats that had been set up everywhere. Tanner jumped down just as easily as Gunner had, but I found myself lingering a little longer at the edge, not trusting the mats as easily as they did. Gunner noticed my hesitation, opening his arms and beckoning down to himself. "Here, I'll catch you"

I tried my best not to let out a small shriek when I let myself fall down, landing securely in Gunner's arms. I could feel the muscles he had built up as a Beta (Not an Alpha, as there wasn't enough strength in either his jumps or handshake to indicate either of those) as he lowered me down to the floor, and I curtsied a little in thanks. He just laughed, bowing slightly in return before Tanner started to direct me towards the doors.

We travelled the rest of the way in silence, me just walking in between the both of them around the several hallways in the building. If I was hired, I really hoped that I would somehow remember how to get around this place.

Eventually we came over to one last set of steel doors, Tanner opening them so that me and Gunner could follow him into the room. It seemed to be some small holo-movie room, one that they had all converted into a meeting room by placing dozens of chairs around the place. All the lights had been turned off in the room, the only thing illuminating everything being the bright blue screen that seemed to be buzzing with electricity right behind Matthias.

As we entered, several people turned their heads to take a look to see who we were. A number of faces were unknown to me, but a couple of people did seem to recognise me as quickly as I did them. Bobby was the first one I noticed, him as well as Kevin and Marvin waving at me from their seats on the right side of the semi-circle of seats (Marvin and Kevin were clearly more enthusiastic in their waving, but that wasn't important). In the center of the semi-circle of seats were Connor and Paul, who both nodded their heads one time in a short greeting (No real prizes for guessing which one was smiling while the other seemed to at least stop frowning). Everyone else was foreign to me, but I didn't get much more time to linger on that, as Matthias was waving me up to the front.

"Good luck" Tanner quickly wished me luck before he and Gunner ducked off to the left side of the semi-circle, allowing me to slip past a couple of seats and move to the front.

Up at the front was of course Matthias, with Jfred standing to his left and with some other unknown man to his right. The man to his right seemed to look a lot like Marvin and Kevin, even down to his skin tone, short black hair and facial features, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to assume that he had to be related to them. Standing in between Jfred and Matthias was Blaire, who nodded her head with a friendly smile towards me. I smiled back, before copying her by standing between Matthias and the guy to his right.

"Hey there, I don't think I've managed to meet you yet" The guy to Matthias' right whispered to me quickly, not seeming like he wanted to interrupt Matthias, but he at least wanted to introduce himself. He reached around himself with his left hand to shake my hand, it being just as gently shaken as when Jfred had shaken my hand. Definitely an Alpha. "I'm Bryan, older brother to Kevin and Marvin"

"Mila" I quickly managed to get my name out, before Matthias cleared his throat loudly to get everyone's attention on him.

"I'm going to try and keep this meeting as brief as possible, as I understand that a bunch of you have contracts with customers that you have to get back to, but we have two new people to add to our company" Matthias got to the point quickly, soon gesturing to Blaire to step forward. "This is Blaire Hall, she's going to be the main personal assistant for the company and she's going to be the one who mans the front desk for our clients"

"It's a pleasure to work with you all" Blaire greeted everyone in one fell swoop, her eyes sweeping the room to get as many people as she could. Words could not describe how cool I found her. "For anyone that might need it, I did have a minor in professional psychology at university. Please, don't hesitate to come see me if you need to talk"

"Thank you Blaire, you can find a seat anywhere in the room. Once this meeting is done, you can talk to Whitney, she'll get you set up at the front desk and show you everything you need to know" Matthias allowed her to step down from the center of the room, a woman waving at Blaire to sit next to her so that it was easier for them to find each other after the meeting. Right after Blaire sat down, he then motioned for me to come forward to stand right in front of him. He then gently placed his hands on my shoulders before he addressed the crowd. "Now, some of you have already met Mila Tanthree here. For those of you who did, what job is she applying for?"

"...What do you mean? You told us she was applying for Assistant requisitions manager" Bobby was the first one to speak up, Marvin and Kevin nodding their heads in agreement. Almost instantly, Connor turned his head to look at Bobby, obviously remembering something different to him.

"No, that can't be" Connor contradicted Bobby, Paul sitting up beside him in curiousity. Paul seemed to look up a little as he thought it over, seemingly coming to some sort of conclusion in his mind before the others. "Matthias said she's applied for a job here as a bodyguard"

"He did? But he... oh" Bobby slowly seemed to come to the same realisation as Paul had, Connor realising only a second later when Bobby really seemed like he wasn't lying about his side of the tale.

Tanner and Gunner managed to send me one final thumbs up, the both of them clearly quite happy about the current situation.

"As some of you may have realised, Mila managed to correctly convince each of you that she was applying for something, regardless of what skills she has or how she seems to behave. And as you also may know, I have been trying to hire someone for a specific position, but nobody has ever come close to reaching what that position requires" Matthias told everyone, their attention fully on both me and him. "Subversion, a quiet presence, someone that most people wouldn't spare a second glance towards. But Mila has managed to reach those goals successfully, within the first meeting of you guys, and so I have decided to take her on under that position. Everyone, please welcome our new undercover agent"

"Wait, what?"

My outburst seemed to suddenly draw everyone's attention over to me, especially so in the case of Matthias, who looked confused down at me. He seemed to regard my confused face with his own confusion, a couple of worried glances from the rest of his workers directed our way.

"...Did I not ask you if you wanted to become that?"

"No, you didn't"

Almost immediately, all of his workers burst into laughter, even Connor laughing uproariously at Matthias, whose ears were turning pink in embarrassment. Even his brother and Bryan seemed to be laughing at him, with the latter at least attempting to hide it.

"Shut up! I'm a very busy man!" Matthias shouted at everyone in the room, but it only served to make the majority of them laugh even harder. "QUIET!!"

"Um, I-uh, I can work as an undercover agent for you if you'd like" I suggested to Matthias, at least making the laughing workers pay attention to us again rather than continue on with their laughter. "As long as it pays about as well as what I get for being a financier, then I can certainly give it a go"

"...How about this, you go on one mission to check out an establishment and you'll see if you think you'd like to keep doing it. If you change your mind after the mission, then I'll just hire you as a financier and have you work alongside Bobby with acquiring goods" Matthias decided, patting my shoulders once before relinquishing his hold there. "But it's probably not a good idea to send you alone, so you can... Hm, take Bobby, Connor and Gunner with you"

"Hey, wait a minute! Why are we going with her?!" Connor protested immediately, throwing his hands up in the air in annoyance. "We have jobs to do here!"

"Consider it punishment for laughing at me! You guys look buff enough that most people should not bother trying to start any trouble with you four" Matthias said to the three of them, gently pushing me forward towards the doors. "And no Paul, I'm not sending you with them! You'd probably enjoy this, so it wouldn't be a punishment for you"

"Dang it" Paul joked, clicking his fingers as though he had been caught with his hands in the cookie jar. It was enough to make me laugh, which Paul seemed to revel in.

"You guys are going to go undercover into a nightclub, one that is in the central business district around here called 'Fight or flight'" Matthias debriefed the four of us, giving Bobby and Gunner a little time to come towards the center of the room to hear him better. "You just need to figure out if anything is going on, like people trying to scam customers, that kind of thing. Everyone else, get back to your usual work"


	4. Shut up and dance with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes come around that has a guy creepily hitting on our main character, so be aware of them if you feel uncomfortable with those scenes

Gunner held the door open to the night club we were entering, making a bit of a spectacle out of the fact he had done so by bowing dramatically towards the rest of us. Connor rolled his eyes at the display, while Bobby didn't seem particularly concerned about it either way. Probably just another day at the office for them.

"Why thank you kind sir" I returned Gunner's joking mannerisms, giving him a mock curtsy despite the fact I was wearing the wrong kind of clothing for that. Gunner grinned slyly at me, quickly mentioning about how it was nothing, before ushering us all in.

The moment the door closed behind us, almost all natural light got cut off, instead being replaced with hundreds of neon lights bringing the dark building to life. Whoever had designed the bar certainly seemed to have a penchant for the colour purple, it being the main colour in the entire room.

So far, Gunner and me seemed to be the only ones really fitting the role of a typical party goer, Bobby and Connor just fidgeting around nervously.

"I already regret this idea" Connor grumbled, crossing his arms at the loud music blaring through the speakers. The music wasn't particularly to any of their tastes it seemed, the typical dance music and pop songs from the last couple of years seeming a little outdated at best.

But I knew that someone at the nightclub would get tipped off that we were acting strange before long, what with half of our group looking uncomfortable just to be there. So, I jumped straight into the role of a party girl, excitedly putting my arms around all of their shoulders to bring them closer to me.

"Aw, come on! Don't be like that, we can have plenty of fun here!" I quite happily giggled to the three of them, the only real laughter in response coming from Gunner, who was doing marvellously in his pretend role of being a party goer. Bobby and Connor on the other hand seemed a little flustered from the close proximity we were all together, the both of them babbling something incoherent in response. "Do you guys drink? I can get us some drinks"

Bobby snorted in laughter almost immediately, both Connor and Gunner this time being the ones who looked a little nervous. I only had to raise my eyebrow before Bobby offered an explanation to me.

"They're extreme lightweights" Bobby chuckled, both other men looking at him like he had somehow personally offended them.

"We aren't lightweights!" Gunner protested, but Bobby shook his head already at their rebuttal.

"You guys literally get knocked out after two beers" Bobby countered what they said perfectly, neither man really looking like they could somehow deny that. "Ah, what the heck. What are you getting?"

"I was thinking of just getting some gin on the rocks, how does that sound?" I offered for them, already digging into my pockets for my wallet.

"Isn't that-

"No, I don't think-

"Sure, that sounds fine" Bobby cut off the other two before they could truly protest, them both looking like Bobby was the devil himself. "Look guys, the longer we stand around without drinks or anything, the more out of place we look. We can argue about what kind of drinks you guys want after"

Connor heaved a heavy sigh, but decided to just lean against a nearby table while he waited. I took that as the best time to duck away, heading towards the bar on the left side of the nightclub, a single bartender wiping down the wooden counter top with little to do. All of the other customers were on the dance floor, so the bartender ended up looking a tiny bit startled when I popped up.

"Hi there! Can I get four gin on the rocks, please?" I shouted a little louder so that he would be able to hear me over the music in the background. He raised an eyebrow at what I was ordering, but he did actually start placing the glasses on the counter top and preparing the drinks.

"Aren't four drinks a little much for such a petite thing as yourself?"

"Oh, they aren't all for me! Some are for my friends over there" I pointed over to the trio of men I had come with, only to realise that all three of them were standing around and not doing all that much. They were sticking out like sore thumbs, something that the bartender noticed just as easily as I did.

"They don't look like they're really enjoying themselves"

"Yeah, they're actually workaholics who don't usually take time off from their work" I smoothly lied, taking a tiny sip of one of the drinks he had already made before slipping the money his way with a small tip added in. He smiled once he saw the tip, putting the money in the till. Now that the bartender was a bit more relaxed and friendly, I kept going with my cover-up plan. "We all work together at a company, and our boss told them that they  _had_ to take some time off, which they of course didn't like. But it's a bit sad for them to just stay inside their homes if they have free time, so I decided to take them here to try and get them to unwind"

"Well, I do hope they manage to do so"

"Me too" I giggled, trying my best to pick up the four glasses without dropping them, as well as remembering which drink was supposed to be mine. It didn't take me long to dash back over to the guys, each of them looking significantly more comfortable now that I had returned. "Here you guys go, bottoms up!"

Gunner took his drink and smelled it immediately to get a feel for how strong the drink was supposed to be, recoiling straight away from the strong fumes. Connor was somewhat similar to Gunner, accepting the drink reluctantly as if it was poison. The most daring out the three had to be Bobby, who accepted the drink from me, gently clinked it against my own, before throwing his head back and chugging the entire thing.

I just laughed at the horrified expressions of his co-workers, before doing the same with my own drink. Bobby proceeded to high-five me after I did so, the horrified expressions now being directed to me instead of him.

"You guys aren't human" Connor breathed in disbelief, still not having taken a single sip from his own. Gunner attempted a sort of similar thing to us, taking about a third of the drink into his mouth, and already looking like he wanted to spit it out in disgust. He somehow managed to gulp that down, letting out a harsh cough immediately afterwards.

"Wow, that's strong" Gunner mumbled, his voice sounding rough as though he had been coughing for days on end, not just once. He took the plunge and drunk the rest in one go like we had, both me and Bobby letting out a small cheer once he managed to swallow it all. He coughed just as harshly as when he took a smaller sip, putting the glass down a little clumsily onto the table nearby. He even sounded like he had developed a bit of a lisp or a slur from it all, giving the hint that Bobby had been correct in his explanation. "So what do we do now?"

"Once Connor has drunk his one, then we can go and dance!" I called out excitedly, both Bobby and Gunner joining in with my excited mood and cheering at the idea. Connor stood by, looking like he wasn't really all too happy with being put in the spotlight. At our eager expressions, he carefully took the tiniest sip of his drink, spitting it back into the glass immediately once he tasted it.

"Oh my god, that tastes disgusting!" Connor complained, pulling a face as though he had sucked on something extremely sour.

"Do you want me to get you something else? Maybe a more fruity drink might be your taste" I offered for him, searching around in my pocket again for the wallet, before he waved me off with a stubborn hand wave.

"No, no I got this. Just hold on" Connor decided in a determined manner, pinching the bridge of his nose shut before throwing back the entire drink like me and Bobby had managed to do. He somehow managed to not spit it back out, slamming the glass down onto the table in a triumphant display of victory. We all cheered for him, him returning the gesture in a way by raising both of his arms in a clear excited manner. "Woo! Come on, let's go!"

The three of them followed directly behind me as I headed back over to the bar, the bartender raising his head back up to see us. He ended up seeing me and Bobby looking a little bit ruffled, but not much else, while the other two had red cheeks and looked like a stiff breeze could bowl them over. He chuckled a little at that sight, before turning to me.

"Anything else I can help you with?"

"Yes, yes you can! I know this might sound silly, but can we dance on the top of the counter here at the bar?" I asked him, clearly pointing down at the wooden counter. The bartender frowned slightly, clearly not liking the idea off the bat, but I quickly sweetened the deal before he could voice those thoughts. "I can pay up front for it, you just name the price! And if we break something, I'll pay for whatever gets broken too"

"...Alright, five hundred credits up front"

"Done! Pleasure doing business with you!" I put the money on the counter, allowing him just enough time to stash it away before I started to scramble up onto the counter. I only realised part way in my climb that I had probably flashed the guys behind me without really meaning to, fixing my skirt once I was fully on the counter. When I turned around, all three of the men had either covered their eyes or looked away when I was getting onto the counter, only really turning their heads back when they were certain I was decent. Such gentlemen. "Come on you guys, don't make me dance up here on my own!"

Gunner grinned a wolfish grin, taking a couple of steps backwards before running forward and jumping up onto counter in one smooth motion. Bobby was the next to come up, climbing up like I had done, albeit a lot more coordinated and without flashing anybody. Connor was the last one to come up, needing Bobby's help to actually get up due to how much the alcohol was hitting his system, but grinning a little sheepishly once he was finally up there.

I didn't have to entice them to dance, them all doing their own individual thing. Gunner was by far the fanciest, doing a lot of fancy footwork as he twirled and twisted around. At one point he even did a back-flip on the counter top, landing with only just a tiny bit of a wobble.

"Yeah Gunner, you get it!" I cheered for him, earning myself a wink from him, before turning my head to look at the other two men. Connor was attempting to do what I assume to be the robot, but a very stiff and drunk version of it, which Gunner noticed immediately.

"What the heck do you call that?" Gunner laughed, making Connor's already red face turn a little bit redder.

"Shut up, I'm trying my best!" Connor grumbled, but you could tell by the grin on his face that he actually was legitimately having fun. "At least be thankful I'm not twerking"

"I would literally disown you as a friend if you started to do that" Bobby laughed beside Connor, him doing an almost perfect replica of the moonwalk over to one side of the counter before coming back.

He accidentally bumped into Connor on the way back, and true to my description of him easily being knocked over by a stiff breeze, he toppled towards me. Due to him being a lot heavier than I was, I got knocked over as well, but Gunner managed to catch the both of us in his arms before we became a literal domino. Connor mumbled an apology to me as Bobby helped him off me, to which I just giggled at.

"Maybe we should get down before that happens again" Bobby suggested with a sheepish grin of his own, the rest of us either nodding out heads or mumbling some sort of agreement. 

Bobby and Gunner were the first two to get down, the both of them turning back to help me and Connor down. Bobby helped the significantly drunker looking Connor down, while Gunner just held his arms out for me to fall into, which I easily allowed myself to do. While Gunner looked and sounded about just as drunk as Connor did, he somehow seemed to be less likely to trip or stumble around than his blonde haired friend.

"You've got good balance" I commented idly with a bit of a giggle, still being carried by Gunner's strong arms. While they certainly didn't look as buff as Bobby's, it was very comfy.

"I'm very good with my feet" Gunner giggled in response, gently placing me down on the floor despite how drunk he seemed to be. "My talent is tap-dancing"

"That... explains a lot, actually" I realised, nodding my head a little as I looked him over. It would explain why his legs were so much better built than everything else, and why he also was able to have such great balance when it came to flips and twists. "That's cool!"

"You think so?" He asked me, looking very happy about my enthusiasm despite the words coming out of his own mouth. "You don't think it's a little... girly?"

"No, why would I?" I reaffirmed my support for his talent, and he just seemed to look with a really heartfelt look in his eyes.

In the meantime, Bobby had finally managed to get Connor down safely from the counter, even managing to get the latter firmly standing on his own two feet without help.

"Thanks for letting us dance there!" I quickly thanked the bartender, about to walk away to some other part of the nightclub to check out when he stopped me by saying something.

"Ah, if you have a moment miss, the owner has invited you up to the VIP section, if you're curious"

The four of us stopped on the spot, glancing over to a roped off section of the nightclub that the bartender was pointing towards. A man in a a crisp white suit sitting on a long red couch lifted a glass of wine towards us in a form of greeting, clearly looking like he was the owner. We all glanced at each other, a little unsure what we were supposed to make of that.

"What do you guys think?" Bobby asked all of us, but both Gunner and Connor straight away shrugged their shoulders with a confused look on their faces. It was clear none of us really knew much of a VIP section, and it showed in how much we hesitated in making a decision. "What about you Mila?"

"...I don't know, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious" I admitted to them, the three of them still seeming unsure. "You guys can come with me, right? If it at all seems dodgy, then we can leave"

They nodded their heads, albeit slowly and reluctantly. All four of us trudged our way over to the stairs to the VIP section, some of us uncertainly climbing the stairs either due to alcohol or heels. When I stopped in front of a burly looking security guard, he nodded simply towards me, stepping out of the way to let me pass. However, when the others tried to follow behind me, the security guard stepped in the way again, shaking his head at them with a single hand raised in a stop motion.

"What, are we not allowed to go in?" Gunner asked him, which received a short grunt of affirmation from the security guard. "But we're with her"

"Only the lady was invited" The guard roughly grunted, causing the three guys to frown majorly. I knew an incident was going to happen if I didn't say or do anything, so I stepped in.

"They're my friends" I pleaded with the guard, gently laying a tender hand onto the outside of his arm to draw attention to me. I tried my best to flutter my eyelashes delicately, but not overdo it so that it wasn't obvious I was trying to get them in. "Please?"

The security guard didn't say anything, instead turning his head to look back at the owner for guidance on what he was supposed to do for this situation. The owner tapped the side of his wine glass in thought, before eventually giving a nonchalant hand gesture. This was apparently the gesture that meant that it was fine, as the guard then did move to the side to allow them in, but not without a quick warning.

"Don't cause any trouble" He grunted at them, before moving back to guard the entrance to the VIP section. Connor looked like he wanted to pull a face at the warning he was given, but decided to drop it after Bobby gave him a stern look. We all moved forward towards the owner, who then patted a side of the couch directly next to him.

"Come, sit" He simply seemed to instruct, another woman to his left running her hands through his hair. It looked a little sleazy... and kind of put me off the idea of sitting directly next to him. I eventually settled for sitting a good distance away from him, leaving at least a good persons width between us. He seemed like he was about to ask me why I didn't sit beside him, when Bobby came to my rescue and sat directly on the spot that I had been instructed to sit on. Gunner and Connor settled for sitting on the other side of me, clearly sensing the tension that was going on between the owner and Bobby. "...Are you her boyfriend or something?"

"No, a friend" Bobby seemed to challenge him on every turn, making his posture as tall as possible and speaking a tone that clearly showed that he wasn't really afraid of the owner. The owner might have even taken his deep voice as intimidating, and I suddenly realised how grateful I really was to have him there. Bobby broke eye contact with him for a moment to sweep a look over the entire nightclub, noticing only scantily clad women in the VIP section. "Nice place you have here"

"Where's her boyfriend?" The owner switched right back to the awkward conversation from before, clearly ignoring Bobby's attempt to change the subject. It didn't take long for us to suddenly start smelling a really cloying scent in the air, almost as if someone was trying to choke us on their scent. I made the mistake of trying to figure out where it came from, the main source of it coming from the owner himself. I tried to come up with some sort of excuse in my mind for what to tell him, but I felt so paralyzed under his gaze. Bobby shifted himself a little forward so that he was in the way of his view of me, and part of me honestly just wanted to crawl behind Bobby entirely.

"He's still working" Connor decided to speak up for me, slightly clumsily placing his hand over my shaking one to calm me down. "We had some days off work, so Mila here offered to take us out"

"What's his name?"

"Paul" Gunner put simply, him also coming to my aid, staring the guy down despite him being the furthest away from him. It didn't matter that Paul wasn't actually my boyfriend, I would gladly pretend he was to avoid this guy further. "Why are you so interested in that anyway?"

The owner leaned further in his seat, upsetting the woman who had been stroking his hair by moving, enough so that he could look at me once more. Bobby looked like he wanted to shift further in his seat to block me from view, but the owner spoke before he could do that.

"Does Paul treat you well?" He asked me, the cloying smell feeling like it was going to knock me unconscious if I didn't get away from him. I tried my best to give a straight answer despite my nerves, and he didn't seem particularly happy with my answer.

"He does, he's the best boyfriend I've had so far" I lied through my teeth, hoping he couldn't tell I wasn't being a hundred percent truthful.

His eyes seemed to narrow sharply at my words, an obvious frown marring his features. It only took him a couple of seconds for him to click his fingers for someone to bring something to him, another guard coming along with a big metal briefcase in his hands. The owner (Whose name I still hadn't managed to catch so far) then pulled out something out of it, throwing it onto the glass table in the middle of the section, it landing with a bit of a thud. While I had certainly never seen that amount all rolled around into a bill, it was definitely money that had been thrown.

"...What is that?" I couldn't help but ask, looking over at the confident looking owner, who was now leaning backwards onto the couch, allowing the same woman to start stroking his hair again. I could tell without looking that the three guys that had come with me were bristling in their seats, practically glaring daggers at him.

"A little incentive for you to think hard about whether he is the right man for you"

...He was offering money for me to reconsider having a boyfriend. He was literally trying to buy me.

"I want to leave" I put simply to the three guys there, who each nodded their heads sharply at my request. Bobby and Connor already put their arms protectively around my back, flanking either side of me as we stood up and stormed out of the VIP section.

"Hey! Where do you people think you're going?!" The owner yelled at us, but none of the guys even looked behind them, just continuing on guiding me towards the exit. "HEY!"

"Ignore him" Gunner told me, him being directly behind me while he gently pushed my back forwards. "People like that never listen"

Even as the guys had constant contact with me, I couldn't help but grip onto their shirt and hoodie respectively, wanting to stay as close to them as possible. Nobody stopped us as we walked out the front door.


	5. Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attempted kidnapping occurs in this chapter, but never actually ends up with someone being taken

The four of us trudged our way down the streets away from the nightclub, letting the soft glow from the street lamps guide our way. Well, it might actually be more accurate to say that I and Connor were stumbling, his inebriated state and my high heels causing that more than anything, while Gunner and Bobby were stomping in anger. Connor would likely have been stomping too, but he decided to go for balance and stability until he was sure footed.

"...We definitely need to tell Matthias about that place" Gunner drunkenly grumbled over to Bobby, who nodded his head sharply in agreement. "Imagine what would have happened if we weren't there"

"You don't think it's too soon? We need to keep a low profile, remember?" Connor ended up adding his two cents into the conversation, the other two men seemingly thinking over his statement a little. While they pondered that, I had to admit that I was thinking over that specific set of words myself. It seemed... odd. We were no longer pretending to be normal party people in the nightclub, so what were they trying to keep hidden?

"It's a bad place for an Omega on their own, maybe even a Beta. The only reason we were fine was likely down to the sheer number of our group rather than the fact we had three Beta" Bobby seemed to make up the decision for us all, turning his head towards me when he was mentioning the part about an Omega being with just themselves. "Leaving that place unchecked would be equivalent with leaving a wolf among sheep in a paddock. We'll tell Matthias about it the moment we get back to work"

"Is he going to make a bad holonet review of the nightclub or something?" I asked all three of them, seeing their heads turn to me in mild surprise, as though they had kind of forgotten that I might be listening in. They all glanced at each other, obviously sharing some sort of secret between each other while being hesitant about sharing it with me. I didn't really like that, it reminding me a bit too much of the conspiring look between Tanner and Gunner back when I was still applying.

"...Yeah, something like that" Bobby murmured quietly, before trudging on in silence. I waited patiently for him to say something further, but he remained silent. Gunner and Connor seemed to remain just as silent as him, even when I purposely looked at both of them. Finally, after what seemed to be many long minutes of silence, Bobby did speak up again, but about a different subject. "Where's your apartment? We should be able to walk you home before we head back to the company"

"You guys are going back to work at this time?!" I couldn't believe my ears, digging my phone out of my clothing and looking at the time displayed on the screen. Only about one hour before it was the middle of the night cycle.

"Oh, no, we aren't going back to work" Gunner explained, using some vague hand movements in the middle of his sentence to gesture in the general direction of the company building. "In order to save time and money, we actually live on the premises of the company, beds and all"

"Ohh... That does make sense" I allowed the other inconsistencies to go for the moment, already quite content with the fact that all three of them were happy to walk me back to my own humble abode. "But I'd love to be taken back home with you guys, it should only be about three blocks down this street we're on"

"Then we're definitely doing that" Connor seemed to declare, looking like he was slowly coming around from his tipsy state to walk better next to us. He seemed to have another idea not long after he had mentioned his first thing, digging around in his own hoodie to look for his phone. "Here, maybe you should have our contact details. Might make getting to work tomorrow a lot easier and safer for you"

Over the following three blocks, each one of them took their turn in putting their number into my phone. Gunner seemingly had to redo his when he double checked, obviously putting the wrong numbers in or the right numbers in the wrong order. While they had mine, I put my own number into each of theirs, each of their phones looking different to each other. Connor's was a simple black phone, no real fancy designs put onto it, but there was a glow in the dark sticker on the back for some hologame that I didn't recognise. Bobby's was silver, sleek and fancy with a couple of drawings of an old language written on it, looking a little like the old Kanji from centuries ago. Gunner's was the fanciest, a bright red with as many stickers on it as he could fit without them overlapping over each other.

"So you said it was going to be somewhere around here?" Bobby spoke up the moment we were three blocks further along, and I nodded while pointing over to a particular building.

It wasn't a particularly fancy building, a two story apartment complex with only a single upper floor room that someone could rent. The upper floor apartment was four times as big as the lower floor ones, but in exchange, it was about four times as expensive to them. I knew all this by heart of course, because the upper floor apartment was mine. There was a single outside staircase that led to my front door, one that I climbed easily until I reached my front door. I looked back to see if the others had followed me up, but I saw that they had just stayed at the bottom of the stairs, watching me go up until they were certain I was going to be fine without them.

"Do you want us to come pick you up tomorrow?" Connor immediately offered when he saw me turn around, something which the other two seemed to nod their heads in agreement with. All three of them were perfectly fine with the idea to go out of their way to make sure I felt safe going to work the next day, which honestly made me feel very special.

"How gentlemanly of you all" I couldn't help but giggle, causing all three of them to either look away sheepishly or have their faces turn red. Or maybe the redness was due to the alcohol, who knows. "But if you wouldn't mind, then I'd really like that"

"Then we'll do that" Gunner mentioned quickly, turning slightly on his heels to already get ready to leave. "We'll come get you around five hours before the middle of the day cycle"

"Sounds good!" I happily chirped, digging out my keys and already unlocking the front door as they proceeded to leave. "Have a good night cycle guys!"

I heard something akin to a similar goodbye greeting from them, but distinctly more mumbled than mine was. I could see them begin to jog back to their company, them obviously wanting to get some last minute exercise in (Or their company wasn't that far away from my apartment). Either way, I let them be and entered my own little humble abode. I had a giant combined living and kitchen in the main room of my apartment, with my bedroom being one door away at the far end from the entrance. I didn't have much yet, as I had just recently moved out of my parents’ house on the outskirts of the city, but it was all mine.

I dropped off my phone and keys on the little table right next to the entrance, before stretching and beginning to gently unwind for the remainder of the night cycle. I had put on a pot of coffee only five minutes after I had gotten in, when I heard a knock at my front door. Simply thinking it had to have been one of three who had just dropped me off, maybe that they had forgotten to mention something, I went straight to the door. Some small part of my brain seemed to sense that something was a little off, so I unconsciously left the hanging lock on as I opened it.

I nearly let go of the door handle in fright when I was face to face with the nightclub owner, freezing directly on the spot as he stared at me with that same penetrating gaze as earlier.

"Hello there. I hope you had an enjoyable walk back to your apartment" He greeted me quite pleasantly, as though showing up to my front door was just as normal as that the sun would rise in the morning cycle. I could tell from his gaze that he didn't like that I had the hanging lock on, but he didn't seem to do much more.

"How did you find my apartment?!" I blurted out, not really caring about hiding any sort of subtlety in my voice.

"We followed behind your group" He told me, his entire demeanour practically screaming that he didn't care about how creepy that was or how against the law it was to stalk and follow someone. "I'll put this simple so that you can understand, alright? I don't accept someone telling me I can't have what I want, and I want you. Close this door, take that lock off, and let me back in"

I practically shook in my heels, my entire body quivering like a leaf in the wind. Very slowly, I shut the door in absolute fear, petrified about what he was going to do if I didn't listen to him. Right as I reached my hand towards the hanging lock, my eyes seemed to glance over at my phone on the nightstand. In that moment, my brain seemed to deliberate on what was the best option, undoing the lock and hoping this guy wasn't actually going to hurt me in any manner, or calling the three guys.

Making a split second decision, I moved my hand back to the door and turned the main lock on the door so that it was now doubly locked, slowly tiptoeing over to my phone and snatching it off the table. The owner hadn't figured out something was wrong yet, likely thinking that the click of the lock was me taking the hanging lock off rather than adding another one, and I took that opportunity to quietly dash to the other side of my apartment towards my bedroom.

I turned my phone on in a hurry, my hands shakily navigating towards my contacts. I didn't have very many so far, only about five, but Bobby's was the first one to pop up due to the alphabetical setting being on, and I nervously selected the option to dial him.

"Please pick up, please pick up, please..." I chanted the mantra quietly as I pressed the phone to my ear, waiting for that sound that indicated that he had done so. Mercifully, Bobby did seem to be very attentive to his phone ringing, and I heard the low beeping tone only after the second ring.

"Mila! Hey, what's up?" Bobby spoke cheerfully from the other end, obviously not being able to tell that I was frantic and frightened out of my wits. "Did you forget to ask us something, or-

"BobbypleasecomehelpmethenightclubownerisatmyfrontdoorandIdon'tknowwhattodohe'stellingmetoopenthedoorandI'mscaredbut-

"Whoa whoa, slow down, I can't understand what you're saying" Bobby stopped me before I rambled on further, allowing me to take a shaky breath in and sort of calm myself now that I knew he was listening to me. His tone was way more serious than before, at least already being able to make out that I was in some form of danger even if he didn't know by what. "Now, try again"

"The night club owner is in front of my door, he followed us after we left and he waited until you guys left to come and knock on my front door" I managed to tell him somewhat coherently, despite the fact I was still frantic and a little too fast in my explanation. "He's telling me to open the front door to let him in, but I'm scared about what he's going to do if-

The front door came flying off its hinges only a moment later, nearly slamming into the couch in the living room, me screaming in fright at the same time. The owner glowered at me from across the room, looking at my phone like I had somehow betrayed him by using it.

"COME HERE!!" He yelled at me, stomping his way over to me. His yell seemed to have the opposite effect on me than he intended, causing me to scramble towards my bedroom and shut that door, locking it a moment later.

I managed to grab my chair from next to the door and jam it underneath the door handle, moving around and grabbing anything that wasn't my bed and shoving it against the door in a valiant attempt to keep him at bay. Once there was no more to bring against my door, could I hear the worried and frantic voice coming from the other end of my phone, making me press it against my ear once more.

-ila! Mila! Mila, please speak to me!"

"I'm here" I managed to get past the gigantic lump in my throat, worriedly looking back at my bedroom door. A big thud sounded from the other side of the door, making a number of objects I had placed there tumble away from the door. I did my best to put them back as I used my shoulder to keep the phone still.

"We're on our way back, just keep him at bay and we'll come and save you!" Bobby hurriedly telling me, his claim being further accentuated by the fact he sounded like he was out of breath, likely sprinting back to my apartment. "Connor grabbed some things from his forge, so we'll definitely save you!"

He sounded almost like he was trying to convince himself more than he was me that he could save me, which I wasn't sure if that was really as reassuring as he had hoped. My conversation with him got cut short before I could respond to his claim, all of my blockades being shoved away from the door as that too came crashing down.

"You are working on my last nerve!" The owner seethed, kicking a chair or two aside as he marched forwards towards me. I tried fruitlessly to use my phone as a projectile against him, but it bounced off his head without any real affect, other than making him madder. "You're coming with me, whether you like it or not!"

"NO!" I screamed at him, attempting to dodge around him and race out of the door behind him. He managed to catch one of my arms before I could fully get past him, tightening it dangerously around my wrist.

He began to try and drag me out of the apartment by my single wrist, but I dug my heels straight into the carpeted floor to pull against him as much as I could. In response to this, he reached out with his other hand to grab my other wrist and wrench me towards him in one swift pull. Forget bruising, his grip was so tight around my wrists that it felt like a single flick of his own would break my bones. Even so, I was more scared of going with him than him hurting me right then.

"Let go of me!" I snarled as loud as I could, lifting one of my legs to drive my heel directly into his chest, while I tried to clamp my teeth around one of his own wrists, but he managed to flick his wrist strong enough that my head got thrown back from it.

"You heard the lady, let her go!" Someone called out from behind him, a long steel bat swinging in a brilliant arc in the air before conking the owner in the head with it. When the owners head drifted to the side in pain, I could see that the wielder of the bat was Connor, a big satchel of goods on his back before he brought the bat far behind his head to swing again.

He didn't have the same luck the second time around, the owner managing to predict that he was going to swing again and catching it with one of his hands that he relinquished from my wrists. For a moment they both wrestled with the bat, clearly not wanting the other to have it, the steel creaking and groaning loudly under the grip of the owners hand. Connor looked a little worried once he realised that he owner was well and truly an Alpha, both in strength and bravado, but Bobby and Gunner quickly came to his aid.

Bobby took the pot of coffee that I had been preparing off the appliance, using that instead of a weapon and smashing it against the opponents head, splashing the hot liquid straight into his eyes. Gunner weaved around the two of them, especially the now screaming owner from the pain, and launched a lightning fast kick against the last remaining hand that was holding my wrist. The owner finally let go of my final wrist, Gunner and Bobby both hurriedly grabbing the both of those now that I was free and tugging me around and away from the owner. Connor, clearly deciding that the bat was not worth fighting over any further, let go of it and allowed the nightclub owner to stumble back a little.

All four of us ran towards the open doorway, sprinting down the stairs as fast as we could without tripping over each other. I could hear behind me that Connor stumbled once or twice behind us, but he quickly caught up to us by leaping over the final four steps of the stairs, running out with us into the street.

"Where are we even going?!" I asked, not really sure how on earth we were supposed to outrun an Alpha with me in tow.

"Here, I'll carry you" Gunner immediately offered, letting go of my arm and holding his arms out bridle style for me to lay on. "That way, we can all just run at the level of Beta and get back to the company much faster"

"Yeah, you two might even be able to race ahead and get her to safety much faster than me or Connor could" Bobby seemed to agree with the idea, but his eyes seemed to concentrate on something else towards the end of his sentence. "If we get you back to the company fast, then the owner might just give up the moment he realises that he can't..."

Connor, Gunner and I looked at him confused with why he cut his sentence short, but his attention wasn't on any of us. He instead was staring at something, or someone, down the street towards the company. When we followed his gaze, did we see why he had paused.

Down the street was the same bouncer that had guarded the entrance to the VIP section of the nightclub, but something was drastically wrong. He was wearing some strange bulky black suit of armour, cables and pipes sticking out in a freaky manner around the shoulders and what seemed to be the back, all of them glowing bright neon green with a horrendous slimy liquid flowing through them. Whatever the liquid was, it was being directly pumped into the guy’s skin, causing his muscles, veins and arteries to light up in a similar green hue. His muscles seemed to twitch and spasm uncontrollably, as though they were growing at far too fast a rate for the guys skin, looking like a horrific mixture of a bodybuilder with way too many muscles and some science experiment gone wrong.

"Do you like it?" The owner smugly asked us, coming out from my apartment onto the street, blocking our only other avenue of escape. Bobby was too paralysed by the horrific sight of the guard, but the rest of us looked at the owner in horror. Who... Who could do that willingly to another man? "It's a new suit that was recently created for Alpha only, as we're the only ones who could survive its effects. It increases a person’s muscles by about... two times, maybe three, the amount of what they originally had"

"What the actual hell..." Bobby seemed to utter quietly under his breath, still frozen by the sight of the guard. As much as we had expected him to be in pain, he was grinning in an almost manic manner, causing me to be even more frightened by his appearance. An Alpha with maybe three times their already superhuman strength, where an average Alpha could lift battlecruisers if they really concentrated. This man... This man could likely level skyscrapers with a single punch.

"Well then, lady and gentlemen" The owner smugly declared, beginning to take a number of threatening steps towards us, which only got further exacerbated when the monstrosity of a man started to close us in from the other side. "Good luck"


	6. Devil trigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence ensues in this chapter

(Bobby doing his best to get everyone to quit with their bullshit in this entire chapter)

My quivering legs weren't really helped by the thundering footsteps from the suited Alpha, who made the ground shake hard enough for my legs to become like jelly with his stomping footsteps.

"Uh, guys? What's the plan here?" Connor was the first one out of us all to speak up, nervously digging around in his satchel of goods for anything useful. Neither of the two other guys said anything, obviously stuck in a frozen manner due to the panic in their minds. The Alpha nightclub owner cracked his knuckles loudly as he stepped closer, clearly attempting to box us in. "Guys, we can't just stand here and get trapped, we need to do something!"

Still neither of them did anything, which finally flipped some kind of switch in my brain, allowing me to break out of my own panicked mode. In a fit of frustration, I kicked Bobby and then Gunner in the back of their legs with my heels, the pain causing them both to yell out and snap out of their deer in the headlights actions.

"DO SOMETHING!" I snapped at all three of them, almost immediately receiving some kind of response from all of them. Connor abandoned the notion of trying to convince his friends to do anything further, instead fully taking off his satchel and tossing random components out to see what he could use. Bobby switched his attention over to me, hurriedly picking me up as though he was going to run for the hills with me in his arms while Gunner, who made possibly the most foolhardy choice, immediately charged for the vastly bigger suited guard with a look of sheer determination on his face. "Gunner, what are you doing?!"

"I'm distracting him! The rest of you go back to the company and get help!" Gunner commanded us, dashing over to the guard in order to do as he promised that he would. Neither Alpha blinked an eye at his words, clearly finding them unimportant in the moment.

The guard swung a big meaty fist towards Gunner, but he seemed to somehow dodge it with an impressive display of reflexes. Another swing was made in an attempt to hit Gunner directly on the head, but he once again seemed to sidestep and avoid it, the fist instead crashing into the ground where he had stood just a moment before, various bits of concrete and rock flying up in the air from the impact. I couldn't understand how on Alfu he was doing that, until I remembered his talent.

Looking down at his feet, I saw that his array of movements was not down to him somehow being able to predict his enemy's movements, but instead was because his feet were deftly moving around to bring his body in and out of danger. Tap dancing required the dancer to have quick movements, including the capacity to jump and twist around in any manner possible to get the correct notes and sounds from their shoes, and Gunner was using this skillset to effectively dance around his opponents attacks. He was literally just dancing on the spot, the erratic movements causing his enemy to be unable to predict where he went next, before jumping or manoeuvring his way around the fists flying in the air. So far, the guard hadn't been able to land a single hit on him, and Gunner didn't even look tired from the high energy exercise.

...But could he do the same if the other Alpha also came around and started to launch attacks against him? If we left him behind to go to the company, would he be able to dodge two sets of barrages as well as deal with his slowly dwindling energy?

"We can't leave him here on his own" I made up my mind, the other two nodding their heads in a determined manner in agreement.

Connor finally found something useful in his satchel of goods, finding the stun baton he had shown me earlier in the day cycle. He pressed the red button on the side of it before flicking the baton out, causing the electric arcs to spark into life, making his face light up in an intimidating blue glow. The Alpha owner, whom Connor was facing instead of the guard, paused for a moment as he regarded the weapon in the other's hand, at least considering the baton to be much more dangerous than the steel bat that he had been swinging around before.

Bobby turned away from the carnage about to unfold, obviously looking for something, before his head tilted upwards to look at one of the street lamps above us. With a loose plan formed in his head, he turned around to face Connor, who had at least managed to make the nightclub owner pause and not advance any more, and whistled sharply to get his attention.

"Swap with me" Bobby ordered his friend, who nodded his head before flinging the stun baton his way. I nearly let out a shriek of fright when I was thrown a moment later, but me and the baton didn't contact each other in the air, instead successfully landing in the opposite arms and hands to where we began. With Bobby now wielding the weapon out of the two of them, the two men quickly walked past each other, trading places now on where they stood, with Bobby squaring off against the nightclub owner and with Connor hovering underneath the street lamp. "Throw her up there; she'll be safer there than she will be down here"

Connor heaved me up into the air with as much strength as he could manage, flinging me high enough that I could grab onto the pole of the street lamp myself. I struggled with the aim of actually pulling myself up there, but I at least managed to scramble up enough so that my stomach was over the main bulb of the lamp. With my position on the lamp post at least sort of secure, I looked down on the others below, hoping I could help in some manner.

Gunner was still ducking and weaving between the various punches and jabs that the Alpha guard was making, but there were significantly more craters and holes made into the road, making it more difficult for Gunner to keep dodging. Something had to be done fast about that situation. On the opposite side from him were Bobby and the nightclub owner, the both of them circling each other with either fists or the stun baton dangerously clenched.

"Ah, you're the one who ruined my good suit" The owner glowered at Bobby, angrily pulling his tie a little bit loose, the tops of his white suit being stained an off colour of brown from the coffee he had thrown on him. "I'm going to enjoy tearing your head off your shoulders and keeping it as a trophy"

"I'd like to see you try" Bobby snarled in response, planting his feet firmly on the ground, wielding the stun baton in a strange manner. He almost looked like he was trying to wield it like the long dead samurai of old, holding it dangerously close to his face, the arcs of electricity looking like they were nearly dancing across his skin itself. "I'm going to make you regret messing with us, and for trying to kidnap Mila"

The owner let out a snort, as though the idea of losing to a Beta was beyond his belief, charging at him only a moment later. Bobby calmly took a step or two to the side so that he wouldn't get bulldozed by the Alpha, and swung the baton through the air in a short swipe at him. The Alpha tried to swing his fist towards the baton itself to break it, but the stronger than usual electricity in the baton caused his entire arm to get shocked with a loud  ** _CRACK!_**

With both men on either side of him at least seeming like they didn't need immediate help, Connor had returned to rifling through his satchel right below me. Most of the things he tossed out seemed useless in the moment, various small bits of metal and wiring that he had likely grabbed without really looking at what they were, but two round circular looking blades caught my attention as he tossed those to the side too. They had a ring of protective metal on the inside of them, almost as though someone had made two bracelets to be worn around the inside of someone's wrists, perhaps to use them as a weapon when fists weren't an option.

My mind switched into overdrive as I looked between both men who might have needed help, with my attention zeroing in on a particular moment when Gunner swung one of his legs up really high in the air to dodge yet another punch. The kick was so high that his foot easily reached the guard's neck, which gave me the idea I needed.

"Connor! Those two blades there, can you adjust them so that they can fit around Gunner's shoe?!" I asked the man below me, whose eyes snapped over to the blades I had mentioned, hurriedly grabbing them and then looking through his satchel a moment later to find a large mallet and hammer. He didn't even question why I wanted them to go on Gunner's feet; he just started hammering away at the steel to bend it out to fit the shape that they needed to go around. I didn't question his skill in making them fit just right in that moment, as his talent was my best bet in hoping that he knew exactly what to do.

I then diverted my attention over to Bobby, who was still doing his best to keep shocking his opponent while not getting hit at all. But despite how well he seemed to be doing now, it would only take a single correct swing from the Alpha to fully disable either Bobby or his weapon. I racked my brain again for anything that I could do to help him, my eyes eventually landing on the street lamp that was two away from where I was perched on. As much as I knew that Alpha were incredibly strong, I also knew that they were just as vulnerable to getting hurt as much as any other class type, most notably shown by how badly he had actually taken getting hit on the head twice earlier from the boys.

A possibly stupid plan came up in my head as I looked at the distance between each bulb, it being more or less the same as the platforms I had been shown by Gunner in their parkour room. When I compared the street lamp to where the owner seemed to hover and remain, it was very close to being directly over his head. This was no longer a case of 'do it if you think you can', this was a case of that I  _had_ to do it.

I jumped off from the first bulb as much as I could, reaching out with my arms to grab the next one. I managed to catch my hands around the pole part of the street lamp like I had managed with the last one, and began working to scramble up to the top of the bulb again. While I was doing so, I managed to find time to look down at the others again.

Connor had successfully managed to convert the blades into a distinctly more foot looking shape, testing them once more with his hammer before calling out to his friend.

"Gunner! Put these on your feet!" Connor only called out once to his friend, before flinging both of the blades, one after the other. Gunner tilted his head back just enough so that he could see where the blades were going, and jumped up enough so that he could avoid the back of his heels being sliced by the blades themselves. When he came back down, he landed perfectly in the blades, the steel on the inside clamping tightly around the shoes he was wearing with a loud  _click,_ him now being armed in some manner.

"What the hell do you expect those to do for you?" The guard rumbled, even his voice sounding off from what was normal for him a couple of hours ago. It almost seemed demonic, the voice being far too low and gravely to even sound remotely human. "You're just some Beta that can tiptoe around my might! You might as well-

Gunner took the moment in which his opponent was distracted with taunting him, doing some strange pirouette on the spot before clicking his heels (Or blades) together and throwing his leg up once more in a high kick. Now that his shoes were well and truly sharp, the kick turned from vaguely threatening to deadly, the sharp edge of the outside of the blade slicing through the bulging skin of the guard like it was paper. Gunner only had to to swipe his leg from one side to the other to completely cut open the neck of the guard, the blood in his opponent's arteries spraying out in a grisly display everywhere. This included Gunner, his tan skin and green shirt being covered in a million droplets of blood, almost as if he had been standing in a fountain of blood. Mercifully, he was wearing his glasses at the time, so he didn't get blinded by the blood, able to now take a number of steps back.

Unluckily, however, this commotion caused Bobby to get distracted, angling his head slightly back to see what the commotion was. This little opening was enough for the Alpha owner to get the upper hand on him, striking out with a single expert fist on an exposed part of the baton that wasn't electrified, breaking the expensive machinery and steel in two. Bobby wasn't injured, but he made sure to take a number of big steps backwards to avoid any possibility of that happening.

Instead of waiting for it to be safe for my second jump, I leapt to the next bulb the very first moment I could, heels be damned. I was concerned with how much I could feel and hear the bulb groan as I pulled myself up once more, but part of my rebellious side was really happy with how likely the entire thing was to fall over.

Connor and Gunner then abandoned the guard on the other side of the road, racing back over to assist Bobby in any manner possible. None of the three of them got to do anything further, when the owner pulled out something from their suit and pointed it at them. I was wondering what it may be, when I heard the heavy sound of a hammer being pulled back on a gun.

"Any one of you fuckers move, and I'll shoot you where you stand!" He seethed, making all three men freeze on the spot. As much as they could come up with some weird plan for two rowdy Alpha, a gun was another manner. Bobby was the first one to start raising his hands in surrender, with Gunner being the second to follow him, Connor being the last and obviously the most distrustful of the situation. Connor's gut feeling got proven right when the owner specifically moved his gun to aim at Bobby's forehead, his eyes filled the same level of hatred as they had. "Even with a bullet hole, your head will still be a great trophy. Might even serve to make your stupid friends fall in line"

I didn't wait any further, jumping up and furiously slamming my feet and heels into the bulb I was standing on. With an almighty snapping noise near the base of the street lamp, the entire structure wobbled before falling over, bringing both me and the lamp down directly over the head of the owner.

The bulb was the first thing to contact his head, shattering into a million pieces over his head like the coffee pot had done, sparks flying out from the now faulty wiring. This wasn't enough to make him drop his gun just yet, but he let out a strangled shout from the pain, which only got worse when I drove my feet into his head immediately afterwards. The gun clattered against the ground out of his grasp, skidding over to where the others happened to be, before I landed on the Alpha in a heap.

I could spy out of the corner of my eye that all three men immediately made movements to grab the gun, but Bobby was the fastest to get it when he dived for it. 

Before I could get up and run to them, I felt a terrible pressure on the back of my neck, as though someone had somehow managed to clamp some kind of machinery on it. I got drug up with the Alpha, who had recovered in record time, holding me in front of him like some ill-gotten prize. I fruitlessly tried to reach my hand back to scratch at his hand, but the pressure he put onto my spine increased tenfold, making me cry out in pain.

"OOOWWW!!" I screeched out, the pain becoming unbearably intense. It was like someone was trying to break my spine in two, the stabbing pains now traveling up and down my body rather than just being at the base of my neck. But even so, if I thought I had yelled loud, then I had another thing coming.

"PUT THAT DAMN GUN DOWN OR I'M BREAKING THIS WHORE'S NECK!!"

The gun fired not even a single second later, causing the pain to stop almost straight away, the hand on my spine even completely letting go. I didn't care about if he was going to grab me again, I just booked it over to them.

Gunner was still covered in blood and Bobby was still wielding the gun, so I ran into the arms of the only one who had his arms out to hold me close to him, thudding into Connor's chest so hard I was worried he was going to topple over for a second. 

"I got you" Connor tried his best to soothe me, his bulky arms wrapping protectively around me as he stared over my shoulder at whatever had happened to the owner. I could hear a dull thudding from that direction, but I didn't want to look at what it was. "I got you... I got you"

A shuddering breath left my lungs, a sensation of breathlessness suddenly leaving my system when I realised that everything had passed. I tried to focus on the warmth and comfort of Connor's hug, but there was an ever present worry in my mind that told me that I had to check on the others to make sure they were fine as well.

I finally managed to pry myself somewhat away from Connor, looking at the other two. The both of them still had their eyes glued to the owner behind me, with Gunner slowly managing to bring his eyes away from that scene and look at Bobby in shock. Bobby himself seemed to take a little while to register that he had truly killed a man, eventually looking down at the gun in his hands like it was horrific to look at. He dropped the gun onto the ground in obvious disgust, his hands looking like they had acquired a heavy shake to them like my legs had.

"Holy... Holy crap" Bobby eventually managed to say, rubbing his hands feverishly against his pants as though he had somehow dirtied them and was trying to get them clean. He looked at Gunner a moment later, seeing the millions of red droplets adorning him all over. "Dude, you are just... covered in that other guy's blood"

"Dang it Bobby, I already know that!" Gunner complained to Bobby, him also seeming like he was just catching onto the fact he had killed another man. "...I already know that"

Connor gently released me from his grip, giving me the opportunity to properly take a step back and try to process everything that had happened. I glanced back at the owner behind us, seeing his corpse just lying there in the middle of the road. I couldn't see the bullet hole itself, but I wasn't about to go and get closer to double check.

"Dang it, this is all wrong... This wasn't supposed to begin for another eighteen years" Bobby suddenly started to ramble a little, running his hands over his face as he paced back and forth between us all. "Crap, crap, what are we going to do?!"

"We need to tell Matthias about this" Connor spoke up, but Gunner shook his head immediately at the idea.

"No, the company can't afford to go underground" Gunner contradicted something in Connor's suggestion, but I soon realised this was something that I didn't understand in the slightest. Eighteen years? The company couldn't afford to go underground? Nothing was making sense. "We've only been in the open for two years; we might as well be shooting ourselves in the head in terms of preparing"

"What other choice do we have? There's no way this is going to go under the radar for anyone, let alone Matthias" Bobby then added that useless bit of information in, which just furthered my confusion.

"...What are you guys talking about?" I pleaded with them, which made all three of them look at me again. Once again it seemed to have been shared around me by accident, and there was that same conspiring look between all three of them. This time however, none of them could deny that something was going on. "Please, I just nearly got killed... I really need to know"

"...We can't tell you" Bobby was finally the one to break the silence left after my own words, but his answer was far from what I wanted to hear. Gunner sighed heavily, but nodded his head in agreement with Bobby when I glanced at him. Connor seemingly refused to look me in the eye, unsure how else he was supposed to explain the same thing as Bobby had mentioned. "Please understand, we're not doing this because we don't trust you. It's just... too dangerous for you to know"

"...Oh" I said, unsure how else I was supposed to voice my disappointment. I knew pressing them further would just make them close off even further than they were right now, and I already felt like I had asked enough of them by getting them to come and save my life.

"So... what do we do now?" Gunner brought up the former subject again, but it didn't seem like the other two had come up with any more ideas in the meantime. Once he was well and truly sure that neither man knew, he turned his head to me. "What about you Mila, what do you think we should do?"

"...Call the police, I guess" I voiced what I thought was the most logical thing to do in that situation, my eyes flicking from person to person to see if they agreed with me. Gunner seemed to like the idea from the moment I suggested it, but Connor seemed a little hesitant. There was some kind of nonverbal discussion that happened between the three of them over the idea (Perhaps it was like a pack link? I had heard of those before, where people could read each other’s thoughts and emotions), eventually seemingly coming to a decision that it was the best thing to do. "...Should I do it?"

Connor's lack of an answer, Gunner's slippery hands and Bobby's almost perpetual shaking hands were enough of an answer for me. After fruitlessly searching in my own clothing for my phone, only to remember that I had thrown said item at the Alpha owner, I borrowed Connor's phone to dial the police. And so, for the second time in that night cycle, I nervously rang someone and pressed the phone close to my ear.

"Hello, Alfu national emergency department speaking" I heard the lady on the other end of the line address me professionally, and yet also with a hint of warmness in her voice. It was soothing, which was likely the objective she had been aiming for. "Which emergency service do you require?"

"...Police please"


	7. One call away

It only took five minutes for the four of us to see the strobing lights from the police cars driving down the long stretch of road. It wasn't that much of a surprise, especially not when you considered the fact I had included 'just got attacked' and 'two people are dead' in my phone call to them. Only two minutes after I had called them, Connor had insisted to the rest of us that he call Matthias to the scene. I didn't really understand how he'd be of any help to us in the current situation, but I didn't argue against the idea. He only had just managed to get off the phone with Matthias when the two police officers stepped out of the vehicle, one of them seemingly still trying to dress himself.

"Jesus Christ, why the hell do we have to deal with a call out at the middle of the night cycle?!" The male police officer out of the two complained loudly, not even attempting to hide his disdain for the four of us. He currently was busy trying to get his jacket properly buttoned up, not realising that his buttons were aligned wrong. "Of all the stupid things, why did you idiots think now was a good time?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll make sure to let our attackers know next time to come back later during the day cycle" Connor's natural grumpy exterior returned at the snide attitude, something that I felt would definitely not make the officer be kinder to us. But in a way, I was grateful for his tough attitude towards these sorts of situations; it meant that people were less likely to just take advantage of us. "Sooo sorry for the fact you have to do your job"

The male officer honestly looked like he wanted to slap Connor, but the ever present other officer made sure that he stayed in line, firmly away from police brutality levels of violence. The other officer was a woman, her looking a lot more reasonable than her partner, giving us all a patient smile.

"Are any of you injured? Because if you are, then it would be better to get you all to a hospital first" She asked us, obviously not able to see everything in the dark. She could see the blood covering Gunner, so maybe she thought he was injured?

"Hey! What the hell are those?" The male officer suddenly jumped in before the rest of us could respond to his partner, pointing down at Gunner's feet. A bit stupidly, all four of us turned our heads down to look as well, when it clicked in our minds that he was still wearing the recently bent blades.

"Oh, uh... they're blades? Sort of like ice skates, but on the sides, I guess..." Gunner answered him, already painting a bit of a picture about what had gone down. While the lady seemed to honestly be just a bit curious about what had happened, the man was clearly unhappy once he learned what they were. Well, more upset than he already was, I suppose.

"Take them off. I don't want you getting any funny ideas and trying to attack us with them, even if I have no idea how the hell they're supposed to work" He demanded of us, Gunner easily bringing his heels together and pushing down on them to make one blade pop off his shoes and then the next, before using his feet to kick them towards the officers against the ground. "Good, now all of you need to split up on your own and wait to be talked to"

"We can't stay together?" Bobby couldn't seem to help but ask, the shaking in his hands at a much softer degree than what it was before.

"We can't have you guys talking about the incident before we get your statements, so come on, hurry up and stand apart from each other"

"Mila nearly got kidnapped, she needs some kind of support" Gunner argued for the case that we would stay together, making sure not to touch me as he hovered his hands over my shoulders. He didn't want the blood wiping off on me after all.

"Who gives a flying fuck?! You guys decided it was a better idea to kill two people rather than running for your lives, so now you get to deal with the consequences!" The police officer barked at us, only really stopping in his tirade when his female co-worker put her hand on his wrist in a clear 'cut it out' manner.

A number of people were starting to crawl out of their homes, obviously drawn by the loud shouting and bright flashing lights. If anything, that wasn't that bad of a thing, as a crowd of people seemed to make the male officer relent in his harsh treatment of us. Nothing like a potential lawsuit to make a dirty cop rethink his approach.

Even better than a crowd forming out into the street, we could spy a truck roll down the street at a fast pace towards us. Bobby seemed to be the first to recognise the number plates on it, letting out a heavy sigh of relief. Once the truck came to a stop, a number of people jumped out, each person dashing towards the lot of us.

"I'm sorry sir, this is a potential crime scene" The lady officer calmly addressed the group of people, stopping them with a firm, if gentle, hand in the air. "We're going to have to ask you to back off"

"I'm their boss" The man spoke, sounding awfully familiar. When he stepped more clearly into the light, I could see that it was Matthias, dressed up to the nines in a professional business suit. The others all hovering closely behind him also seemed similar in various manners, my eyes catching that Kevin, Marvin, Tanner and Paul had also hitched a ride in the truck. Jfred, Bryan and Blaire also seemed to come along, but they certainly seemed to be taking a backseat role in everything, preferring to let Matthias do the talking, which certainly seemed like the wisest course of action. "As such, I'm also representing them in terms of legal matters"

"I thought it was fucking illegal to represent someone if they worked in the same company" The male officer grumbled heavily, not liking the extra attention they were getting from our co-workers. Matthias didn't bat an eye, instead calmly addressing said officer with a confident demeanour.

"No, it isn't" Matthias stated simply, speaking as though he was talking to a moron rather than an officer. I wasn't sure if he was doing it intentionally, but the officer did seem like he was getting more and more pissed, much to the chagrin of his partner. "It is illegal to represent  _family_ on Alfu, and I am not related to any of them"

I could see through his lie immediately, remembering what Bobby had referred to Matthias as when I had been first introduced to him. 'Anything for my favourite cousin'. I didn't say anything, not even when the lady officer looked back at our faces to see if she could notice any similarities between us and him. Bobby, despite being the only one related to him, didn't look remotely like Matthias at all. He took more after his Asian descendants, which was apparently enough to not make the officers call Matthias on his bluff.

"Alright, but we still need to interview them apart from each other" The lady officer conceded, dropping her hand into a relaxed stance by her side instead. "Why are the rest of these people here?"

"They also work for me. I am certain that my employees are probably very traumatised after what has just happened, so they are here to reassure them and prevent them from being negatively affected from all this" Matthias stated simply, looking like he was about to casually step past them when the male officer raised his hand this time. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"You're damn right it is! They just committed a crime; they don't deserve to be molly-coddled!"

"Screw you asshole" Connor whispered under his breath, only really seeming like he was calming down when I put my hand out to gently touch his.

"Are they being arrested for something?" Matthias calmly asked the male officer this time, earning him a confused look from the latter.

"I... What are you-

"Are they being charged with something? Do you have definitive proof that they committed a crime?" Matthias kept grilling him, leaning slightly forward so that he was standing in the personal space of the officer. Matthias was by far not the most intimidating person, especially not when Jfred, Tanner and Bryan towered in terms of height behind him, but somehow he frightened the living daylights out of the officer. There was something... dark in his eyes, one that seemed to scream that he had done many bad things before... An old forgotten evil that lurked beneath the surface.

"Bro, calm down" Bryan very gently laid a hand on Matthias' back, his tone not really mad, but somehow... as if he was trying to remind him of something. "You're regressing"

Matthias' eyes suddenly seemed to snap back to normal, his face almost seeming to say that he was a little shocked that he had reacted so to the threat of arrest. The officer, well and truly unsettled by the sudden change, wasn't going to push his luck any further with him.

"No, they're not being arrested" His partner spoke up for him, bringing the attention off her well and truly frightened cohort, gently waving the entire lot of them forward. "I can completely understand that they need someone they know to calm them down, and I'm more than happy to allow that. On one condition however, they have to promise not to touch anything that looks like evidence or talk about what just happened before we have spoken to them"

"Of course" Matthias acknowledged, giving a quick head signal to the others behind him to get moving to us. "Who are you planning to speak to first?"

"I was thinking the young lady, she was the one to make the phone call after all" The lady decided, gently directing the four of us with a wave of the hand to separate from each other. With a wistful look towards the three men, I reluctantly pulled myself away from them and moved under the lamp post. They found their own little spots, at least a good couple of feet away from each other, either looking at Matthias or me for support.

"Then I'll follow you there" Matthias decided on the spot, sounding a lot more serious than he was when he first met me and during the meeting we had earlier in the day. Don't get me wrong, serious was probably the right thing to do right then, but it just seemed a little eerie compared to what I knew of him so far. "Kevin, Marvin, you two head over to Gunner and give him some fresh clothes, he'll need to give his current ones to the police. Tanner, you go to Connor. Paul, you head to Bobby. Jfred and Bryan, you guys make sure no nosy people from the neighbourhood step on anything that looks like it might be evidence. Blaire, you go to whoever you think needs your help the most"

Everyone dutifully split up to their assigned tasks, each person’s face oddly stoic despite the strange circumstances. Most normal people would be freaked out at stepping around a dead body, or possibly handling blood, but they all seemed as if it was just another day at the office. A really serious day at the office, but still normal somehow.

"Are you feeling up to being asked some questions?" Matthias then asked me, gently guiding me down to sit on the ground rather than stand, giving my wobbling knees a break. He seemed closer to that of a father figure now, rather than the scary version I spied when he was against the officer. Speaking of that officer, where was he? I found him a moment later hovering around the blades Gunner had kicked off earlier, far away from me, and probably more likely, Matthias. "Mila?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah... I think I'm alright for questions" I snapped back to the conversation, trying my best to no longer get distracted from either of them.

"Alright then, I think we'll just get you to explain what happened from the beginning. After that, I'll ask you some other miscellaneous questions. Does that sound good?"

"Yes"

The next five or so minutes consisted entirely of me telling the police officer what I could remember of the last couple of hours. Matthias didn't say anything the entire time, only occasionally nodding or shaking his head when the officer asked me questions. He seemed way too calm, especially at the descriptions I had made about the death of the two attackers. One really weird example of a question stood out to me however, causing my anger from before to resurface.

"So, just for clarification, do you believe you led the bar owner on?" She asked me, causing me to almost grip my arm so tight that my fingers began to turn white. Regardless of what had happened before that owner came after me, it was way too inappropriate for what had just happened. "Did you flirt with him, and then leave without doing anything concrete with him?"

"Don't answer that" Matthias cut me off before I could even get a single syllable out, obviously agreeing with me while glaring at the lady. "That question is irrelevant to the current case you are investigating"

"It's simply trying to establish motives-

"Motives of a dead man? That has nothing to do with the current case" Matthias stubbornly stuck to his guns, crossing his arms over his chest. It was causing some unnecessary wrinkles in his fancy suit, but he didn't pay any mind to it. "You are talking to my worker, so that means that you should be figuring out whether this incident is murder or self defense. A question like that is skewered towards the deceased, no matter how you look at it. Regardless, that is useless, considering the fact he's dead"

"If she did purposely try to attract him to her, it could have been her plan to murder him the moment he entered the apartment"

Matthias sighed the deepest sigh I had ever heard from a man before, before he jabbed his finger in the direction of my apartment. The lady officer and I turned our heads in that direction, but all I could see was the fact that my front door had been blown off it's hinges. It was apparent that it was all the officer could see too, as she just turned back to him with a confused look.

"Why would she refuse to open the door for a person she was trying to murder? Honestly, do you police even get training anymore?" Matthias' anger levels seemed to be rising again, that dark look in his eyes slowly reappearing.

"We're trying to eliminate all possibilities"

"It sounds like classism to me. You asked a leading question to the first witness, before you had even talked to anyone else about the incident" Matthias took a deep breath to calm himself when he realised he was getting too worked up, doing some sort of quick mind meditation to bring his stress levels back down. When he opened his eyes again, the dark look was gone once more. "I don't know if you're intending to profile Omega like this, but it is certainly sounding like it. Regardless of your intentions, it's causing emotional distress to my worker, so I would drop it unless you want a lawsuit on your hands about harassing a witness"

The lady was clearly shocked. She not really used to anyone, let alone a Beta lawyer, pointing out how biased she was acting toward Omega (Or women, whichever one she had ended up aiming for). In most cases, I wouldn't have been all that for the idea of confronting her with this, as I didn't like to start up conflict, but I felt she definitely deserved it this time. I had nearly been abducted, and then subsequently had them try to kill me, so I didn't want to hear any nonsense about how it somehow was 'my fault'. So screw her. 

She eventually seemed to regain her composure, looking down at the notebook she had brought out, before obviously crossing off a question she had intended to ask me.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?" I decided to ask her after a couple of minutes of silence, hoping that was the final questions to her interview. She mulled over her notebook, before settling on what she thought was the most important.

"Yes. You mentioned that a 'Bobby' and a 'Gunner' were the ones to administer the killing blows on either of the two present deceased, correct?"

"That's correct"

"So, can you please point them out?"

I cast a quick glance over at Matthias, asking him for his approval on the request. He nodded his head the moment he saw me asking for assistance, allowing me to actually point the finger at both parties.

"Gunner's the one covered in blood over there, with the dark green shirt" I pointed directly over at said person, him being too distracted by Kevin and Marvin to really notice anything amiss. He was trying to change out of his green blood soaked shirt, the two brothers giving him a fresh shirt once he was done. I usually would have appreciated the time to appreciate how well built Gunner was, but I wasn't feeling up to it right then. "He also has glasses"

"I see, I see" The officer affirmed, scribbling something in her notebook about who was who. "And Bobby?"

"The, um... The one in the baseball cap" I switched my pointing finger until it was pointing at Bobby this time, but I didn't have the liberty of doing it sneakily, Bobby noticing our collective gazes and gesturing appendages. I almost expected him to look hurt, as if I had betrayed him, but instead he tried his best to send a patient smile towards me. It only served to make me feel guilty somehow, as though I was marking him for death.

"Bobby was the one that fired the gun?" Came the final question from the police officer, to which I could only nod my head at. She scribbled one final paragraph into her notebook, before trying to give me her most thankful smile. "Thank you very much Mila, that's all the questions I have for you. Please sit tight while I go and visit the others"

The police officer seemed to stand up very fast before she sped walked over to the next person she wanted to interview, Bobby, almost seeming like she was doing so to avoid Matthias. Just like her partner, how ironic.

"Someone will come over to take care of you while I'm with the others" Matthias spoke to me in a gentle fatherly voice, placing a hand delicately onto my shoulder to give me some sort of support. He smiled when I nodded my head, giving me a short squeeze before he left to follow after the officer.

Sort of like a game of musical chairs, everyone seemed to switch around the circle of who went with who. Bobby no longer had Paul sticking by him, the latter shuffling on to Connor, replacing Tanner who then moved over to Gunner. Of course, that left Kevin and Marvin, who both seemed to move over to me.

At first the two of them seemed to me smiling in a sort of greeting type of manner, when both of them seemed to frown at something behind me. I turned my head slightly, noticing the male officer dash away from me, as though he had been trying to somehow sneak up on me.

"Geez, you take your eyes off someone for a single second and they sneak about like some kind of snake" Kevin grumbled, fishing something out of a backpack he had loaded with supplies. He eventually found a soft looking blanket, draping it around my shoulders and back until I was snugly wrapped in. "Here, you look like you could use this"

"What was he trying to do?" I asked them, mainly because it seemed like they knew what he was about to do. Marvin shrugged his shoulders, obviously not actually having any experience with it, but Kevin scowled in the general direction of the officer.

"Probably trying to coax another interview out of you, but without Matthias present" He grumbled, before sitting himself down on the ground next to me. It was as if he was an older brother to me, keeping all the riff-raff away from his little sister. Marvin seemed to copy him, sitting on the other side from me, but without the same scowl that his brother had on. "It's happened before to me, they try to convince you that somehow you're in more trouble than you actually are, and that 'they are the only ones who can help you'. It's fear-mongering, nothing else"

"...Oh" I didn't say much else, instead choosing to snuggle more into the blanket they wrapped around me. The two brothers seemed like they were the biggest jokers, as well as the ones that talked the most, but the two of them only had to glance at my face to tell that it was not the time for either of those things.  Instead, Marvin started patting my back in comfort, while his brother gently held a hand on my shoulder.

"We'll get through this, we will" Kevin promised me, and I honestly wanted nothing more than to believe that. I truly, truly did.


	8. Communication

For a while, Kevin and Marvin had seemed perfectly content to remain with me in silence. Emphasis being on the 'for a while' part of the sentence, as eventually they seemed to think that the silence wasn't doing me any favours. It was leaving me to stew in my own thoughts, which retrospectively I can admit was wreaking havoc on my remaining stress levels. So they switched over to their good old tactic of making fools of themselves to cheer me up. Currently Marvin's idea was to stick a candy in his mouth to make himself look like a vampire, much to the chagrin of the two officers and several bystanders, who seemed to believe that he was being disrespectful.

"I hunger! I hunger for something that only one of you can give me! Chocolate!" Marvin cried out in a dramatic manner, and despite the questionable nature of his statement, proceeded to lunge over the top of me towards his brother Kevin. Kevin, being the good sport he was, obviously feigned a melodramatic attack taking place on his neck in a silly fashion. Once the two of them had gotten enough laughs out of me, and they were aware of the dirty looks several people were giving them, they decided to call it quits with that bit. "But seriously, you look like you could do with some sugar right about now. Your face is way paler than what I remember when you came in for your interview"

"As long as you aren't offering that thing you have in your mouth right now, then I guess it's probably a good idea" I laughed, holding out my hand for whatever they decided was best for me at that moment. Marvin seemed quite happy with the fact I was at least eating something, but Kevin seemed to have his eyes on someone else. "What would you recommend?"

"Well, I personally like-

"Hey! Excuse me, sir? Please step away from that, that's evidence!" Kevin startled both me and his brother by shouting at some random passerby down the street, looking like an elderly gentleman that was getting too close to the corpse of the guard. It honestly was a wonder the man hadn't stepped in the blood yet, it being a huge puddle around the body itself. Regardless of all of these things combined, the elderly gentleman didn't seem as if he was intent on listening to Kevin's instructions. "SIR!"

"Sorry Mila, we probably need to go help with keeping people away from the evidence" Marvin quickly excused himself, his brother already up and charging towards the old man. They were so spry and athletic for Omega, I was almost jealous. "Excuse me! Please don't touch that!"

Even with two taller than average men sprinting over to him, the older man didn't seem like he was going to change his mind anytime soon, poking one side of the corpse like he had every right to do so. Obviously he wasn't going to listen to them, so both brothers were forced to drag him away before he could do anymore damage. He soon began screeching something about police brutality, even though Marvin reminded him that they weren't police officers (And they were being very gentle), causing an entire stink about the fact.

At the mention of police brutality, my mind seemed to link that back to the male officer from before, and before long I was looking around for him again. He was up to no good again, unsurprisingly, hovering around me as if he was trying to catch me unawares to intimidate some more information out of me. For the moment he seemed to be hanging back because Matthias had glanced my way, obviously confused about why neither of the two guys were around me. He put a stop to any plan the officer might have had, quickly gesturing for Blaire to come over and take their place.

She strode over to us, as self confident as ever, which was already enough for the officer to beat another hasty retreat. Blaire scoffed when he glanced towards him, viewing him with obvious disdain before she sat down on the ground next to me.

"I'm honestly surprised that guy still works for the police, considering how bad he is at deescalating a situation" Blaire stated it loudly, obviously uncaring about whether the man could hear her at all. Heck, it might be that she was aiming for him to hear her. "I'm betting that he's still there because he pays money to his bosses to make them look the other way"

"You don't think it might be because the police has bad officers?" I asked her curiously, spotting her eyes shifting from each one of our coworkers to the other. It seemed obvious to me that she had the same concern as I had earlier, clearly wondering why on Alfu nobody was freaking out at the sight of the bodies.

"No, I don't. The police are supposed to have a regular psychologist to ensure that the police officers are right for the job, and that they aren't being affected by the things they see" She sighed loudly, showing the first sign of imperfection in the form of fiddling with her polished red nails. "So either it means this guy is paying someone to keep his job, or..."

"Or the police system is screwed" I finished her sentence, to which she reluctantly had to agree with. I didn't really want to bring up the subject of why people seemed to be acting like this was mundane right here on the street if I could help it, so I instead tried to think of another thing to ask her. "Why didn't you apply to be a psychologist for them? You did say that you had a minor in that"

"Honestly? The personal assistant position at P.W.C. paid more than anything they could give me" She huffed, casting a sideways glance towards the male officer, who had seemed to have learned his lesson this time and was no longer trying to sneak up on me. "It might sound selfish but my sister is trying to go through college, and I can't afford to go for a job that is more dangerous _and_  pays me less. Besides, I minored in psychology, not majored"

"So you see it as more of a hobby than a potential job?" I asked her, seeing her simultaneously nod her head and shrug her shoulders at the same time. It was clear that the combination meant that I was correct, but that she truly wasn't all that bothered about it all. "Have you gotten a feel for how our coworkers are doing?"

She glanced over the three men who were still to be interviewed by the police, but the slight frown on her face seemed to say that she honestly hadn't figured out much about any of them. In fact, her following words seemed to imply that she had that experience from most, if not all of them.

"I haven't seen enough of them to really say anything beyond surface appearance. The only one I've really tried to analyse so far is Jfred, and... he seemed more closed off than his jovial attitude would imply" Blaire seemed to decide that from what little she had picked out of her interviewer, her eyes locked onto him not too far away. Once it was obvious that she couldn't really say much more about him either, she turned to me with a serious look in her eyes, her voice dropping quite a bit in volume when she spoke to me next in a conspiring sort of manner. "But between you and me, have you noticed anything odd about the way everyone is reacting here?"

"...You mean how everyone is acting too normal?" I whispered back to her, feeling as though I could trust her with the information more than anyone else at the company, likely because we were just as new as each other in our jobs. "Yeah, they seem as if they've already dealt with a situation like this one... Not to mention I'm getting the impression that a number of them are referring to things that I don't get"

"You too? The guys I came with kept mentioning things about how it was 'bad for the company if this happened already' or about how 'this wasn't supposed to happen yet'. Let me guess, their answer when you ask about it is something akin to 'don't worry about it' or 'sorry, we can't tell you'?" I nodded my head in response to several of her questions, my relief being immeasurable that I wasn't the only one to have noticed all these things. Not only that, I was so happy to notice I wasn't all alone in being confused about it, it felt like I at least had someone on my side. "Ah, darn. We're already swapping people again"

I shifted my attention to spot what she had pointed out, Matthias and the female officer obviously being satisfied with the questions that had asked Bobby, everyone shifting again from person to person. Connor was the next one on the list of interviewees, with Paul and Tanner shifting from their positions to ensure nobody was left on their own in case that other officer reappeared. This did mean, however, that Blaire couldn't stay with me, Tanner beginning to make his way over to me. Right as she left, she gave me a gentle rub on one shoulder, whispering something that only I could hear before she moved on to Bobby.

"I'll keep asking around in case one of these guys will let something slip" Blaire assured me, confidently squaring her shoulders as she headed to Bobby. "I will let you know if I find anything"

I didn't even have the time to fully thank her or assure her that I was going to do the same, her slipping out of listening distance within seconds and with Tanner coming far too close for me to whisper anything without him hearing. Sighing, I decided to let the subject go for the time being, instead focusing on Tanner.

"Hey, how are you handling all of this?" Tanner asked me with a very patient manner about him, coming down to sit beside without hesitation. I'm not sure what it was, but that question was the final nail in the coffin, making all my emotions pour out within seconds. "Oh Mila... Here, come here"

He shifted himself beside me until he could wrap his arms entirely around me, bringing me into a comforting embrace as I began to cry softly. I couldn't figure out whether the tears were from a feeling of hopelessness or frustration, but they were certainly at least one of the two.

"This-This was supposed to be my home!" I cried out in a mixture of anger and anguish, one of my available hands reaching out to tightly clench his shirt between my fingers while the other punched his chest in some form of anger. He didn't bat an eye about me possibly causing him or his shirt harm, instead shifting one of his arms so that he could pat the back of my head softly. "I'm supposed to feel safe in my home, and now I never will! Every time I step into that apartment, I'm just going to remember this! It's not fair damn it!"

I clearly wasn't very quiet, my voice carrying not only over to everyone in the company, but also all the bystanders that had come out into the street. The female officer clearly grimaced, suddenly looking very apologetic for her line of questioning to me earlier. But the one person who's attention seemed to be grabbed the most was Paul, standing directly across from me and Tanner next to Gunner. His upbeat attitude had never seemed to really follow him out here, but he honestly seemed like he wanted to abandon his post next to Gunner to come over to me and Tanner instead. He seemed to ask Gunner if that was alright, but Matthias (Who was only one person away, hanging around Connor) quickly let him know that he would just have to wait.

Once I was sufficiently done with shouting, I instead decided to crawl into Tanner, allowing myself to be completely enveloped by his warmth. The hug he was giving was even more comfortable than I had expected from him, his bigger body being vast enough that it felt like my much smaller body could just be entirely surrounded by his comforting arms. His slow and deliberate breathing also seemed to have a calming effect on me, letting my entire system relax after my outburst. He stayed like that for a good while, just letting me sit right there in his lap and listen to the sound of his heartbeat, when he shifted himself slightly to rummage around in one of his pockets for something.

"I've been trying a new type of candy lately, I think now's the perfect time for you to have some sugar" He held out the candy at around my face level, showing me the slightly dull orange looking colour of this one. Wordlessly, I opened my mouth to accept it, and he popped it in without really any fuss. "It's supposed to remind people of an apple pie, but I'm not quite satisfied with it yet"

True to an apple pie, there was a good hint of cinnamon that seemed to swirl in the background before a strong flavour of caramel seemed to coat my tongue. It was really nice, but at the same time I could also see what he meant with it not quite being enough to be linked with an apple pie, as it was missing something.

"It's missing the apple" I commented idly, swirling the candy further around in my mouth. Tanner clearly seemed to agree with me on the missing ingredient, gently using one of his sleeves to wipe my teary face.

"Yeah, I agree. The bummer thing is that candy apple flavour is far too... I don't know, fresh tasting? It doesn't have that same flavour as caramelised apple, hence why I put caramel in there to counteract that" He agreed with me, idly rubbing the soft fabric across my face until he was satisfied that I looked more presentable. "But if I put both caramel and apple in there, it tastes too sweet and then I lose the cinnamon"

"Have you tried salt in your caramel?" I asked him, sort of thinking similar to how his previous candy was too salty and he had added sweetness from something else to counteract it. "If you make it a salted caramel, then that makes it not too sweet, but you still get a caramel flavour with it"

"Oh my god, that's actually a really good idea" Tanner seemed to like the plan I had come up with on the spot, gently ruffling my hair in a show of appreciation. "I'll try that out. I'll make sure to keep some separate for you to try though"

"Tanner" Paul's voice came from directly in front of us, despite the fact I had seen the fact that Matthias hadn't approved him coming over here until it was time to swap. Tanner seemed to be thinking along the same lines as I was, tilting his head up to look at him with furrowed eyebrows. "We're swapping already"

"We are? It was only a couple of minutes ago that we swapped from Bobby to Connor in terms of being questioned" Tanner didn't seem to quite understand, but the fact that people were switching around in the background did mean that Paul was telling the truth. As such, he was gently removing me from his embrace, placing me back onto the floor next to him in preparation for moving over to Bobby.

"Yeah, I know" Paul had to admit, sparing a glance behind him as the lady officer moved over to Gunner alongside Matthias. "But it seems that Connor didn't have all that much to add to the questions she had, so it ended up being fairly quick"

"Ah, gotcha" Tanner affirmed the new information, standing up and stretching himself out slightly from his crumpled position on the floor. Before he left, he gently ruffled the hair on the top of my head, giving me a soft smile. "Don't worry, Paul's gonna take good care of you"

True to his word, Paul immediately popped down onto the floor beside me once Tanner was on his way, extending an arm around my shoulders to bring me in closer to him and allowing me to rest my head against his nearest shoulder. His body was a lot bonier than... well, any of the Beta that had carried me or hugged me during the day cycle, but I could clearly tell that he was caring in his touch.

He didn't ask me how I was doing, already being able to tell from far away that I have had much better days in my life, instead choosing to just hum softly to himself and me.

"...I'm a little surprised that you're not cracking any jokes right now" I had to admit to him, tilting my head slightly on his shoulder to look up at him. His eyes seemed to also tilt, looking downwards at me with tenderness in his hazel eyes. "You just kind of struck me as someone to solve everything with silly quips"

"There are times and places for those things, but right now is certainly not one of them" Paul assured me, his fingers almost unconsciously running through my hair. I wasn't sure if it was a thing he did with everyone, but it did feel very... affectionate. Somehow, it was very nice, the feeling of being doted on. "You deserve to have someone devoted to you, loving you in a way that makes you love them in return. You don't... You didn't deserve this"

There were no words that I could find that would match the intensity of what he said, and I felt that just agreeing with him without any conviction behind it would feel hollow in comparison. But I was happy, immeasurably so at his words, and so I just wrapped my arms around his chest and dug my face further into his shoulder, listening to the faint sound of his heartbeat.

I settled myself there for a long while, feeling quite content with the way he continued to gently thread through my hair with his fingers. Before long, I had become comfortable enough for my mind to return to a sort of presentable state, thinking over a couple of things.

When the male police officer came around again, Paul naturally scared him away by baring his teeth in an animalistic manner and snarling loudly, but for some reason the officer reminded me of Blaire when she was the one looking after me. Without really lifting my head away from Paul's shoulder, I looked around for her, noticing her standing beside Connor and asking him something. Whatever he had been asked by her, he shook his head at, clearly either disagreeing with her or not divulging any information about something. It had to have been her asking about what everyone at the company was talking about when they were referring to something secret, which she had promised me that she was going to ask around about...

"...Paul, what are people referring to when they are talking about something happening in eighteen years?" I softly asked Paul, risking the chance that he was going to retreat away from me. He didn't, I thanked god for that, but I still pensively held my breath as he seemed to glance over a bunch of our coworkers. I wasn't sure if he was steadily ignoring the question like the others had done, but I had to take the risk to find out. "I heard Bobby, Gunner and Connor mention it after... this happened. They kept mentioning about how the company would have to go underground, or about how this was all 'too early', but when I asked them about it, all three of them told me it was something that they couldn't tell me"

Paul still remained silent, his eyes this time glancing over at both brothers keeping away bystanders and Jfred and Bryan with their task of keeping other people out of the way. I almost was convinced that he was fully intent on bypassing my questions, when his eyes then switched over to Matthias with a new intensity to them. Almost as if he was trying to keep an eye on him, to make sure Matthias wasn't paying attention to him in return. And then with the lowest volume I had ever heard, so much so that I had to strain my ears to not miss what he had said, he whispered something to me.

"...The prevention of widespread chaos" He only said it once, and it took me a couple of seconds to fully register what he even said. He could spy my confused gaze out of the corner of his eye, and he risked one more sentence of information before someone came along. "What's our company name?"

"...The Personalised Workforce Company?" I half asked him, half answered him, unsure what the second question was supposed to give me. He didn't say anything else to aid me, instead fixing me with a stern but pointed stare. He seemed to know that I could figure it out if I truly thought about it, so he almost seemed to scream in his nonverbal communication that I had all the clues.

Personalised workforce company... honestly, the only thing I had figured out about the name was the fact I found it a bit of a weird name to label themselves. Both the words workforce and company seemed to cancel each other out, so it seemed a little stupid. It was almost as if they were purposely just trying to find something that somehow fit into an acronym-

...P.W.C.

If you missed the words 'the' and 'of', which already was normal for most organisations, the acronym applied to both names. They had only taken on the other name because it happened to fit, but their actual name was The Prevention of Widespread Chaos.

"That's the most I can tell you about it right now" Paul told me in a lowered voice, being able to understand when I had gotten his hint by the shocked look in my eyes. While it didn't answer everything I had about what on Alfu was going on, it was far more than what the others had divulged to me. And who knows, such a tiny bit of info might actually cause Paul to be in big trouble later if anyone had found out he had said anything. "Oh, looks like they're done talking to Gunner as well"

Even faster than when Connor had been interviewed, the police officer decided that there honestly wasn't much more she could gather from him than she could from the rest of us, stepping aside with Matthias to discuss a couple more minor details. Matthias seemed to give Tanner some more instructions on how to conduct without him present, and Tanner clapped his hands loudly together to grab everyone's attention to him.

"Alright guys, the rest of the police investigation unit is apparently on their way here, so we can leave the crime scene preserving to the authorities now" Tanner spoke to all of the employees directly, clearly taking on his role of second in command to get everything sorted. "Everyone who is catching a ride in the truck, whether it be back to the company building or back to their homes, should prepare themselves to get going. All of the people involved here will need to turn over their current clothing to the authorities so that they can check for the things they need, please use the back of the truck for some privacy. Guys, please go make use of it now if you haven't already"

Bobby, Connor and Gunner headed over to the truck first, clearly wanting to get changed into fresher clothing as soon as possible. While I waited my turn to get changed, I couldn't help but glance back at the ruins of my old apartment, wondering how on Alfu I was supposed to stay there with the door blown right off. Paul clearly noticed me looking that way, offering something before I even had to explain my dilemma.

"You can come stay at the company. We can find a bed in the wing where all the ladies are staying, and you can stay as long as you need" Paul decided before he had even checked with the others, obviously noticing my hesitation in terms of them when I glanced over at Tanner. "Trust me, the others won't mind"

"...You're sure?"

"More than sure, I'd almost guarantee that the others would likely say the same thing" Paul insisted a little more, clearly not being content with the idea of me remaining inside my apartment, not after what I had experienced there. And trust me, I was more than happy to take his offer up once I saw how truly insisting he was about it. I didn't want to spend another minute in that apartment.

"Mila, you can use the back of the truck now" Bobby called out to me as he trudged his way back over to the employees gathered in the street, handing over his clothing to Tanner, who took all three lots of clothing and put them into a plastic bag for the police to need. "Tanner, do you have some spare clothes for her?"

"Of course I do! What do you think I am, some kind of savage?" Tanner reacted as though the notion of not giving me clothing to swap with my own was worse than anything else Bobby could have suggested. He brought out some clothing that didn't quite look like my size, maybe closer to something that Matthias or Paul would wear in contrast to me, and held it out towards me. "I can't guarantee that it's nearly as stylish as the ones she's wearing right now, but it's better than nothing"

I moved myself as if to stand up from off the floor, but my legs suddenly felt as if they had locked up in the process, causing my legs to nearly buckle out from under me. A number of people were startled by my sudden stumble, Gunner almost stepping forward to catch me before Paul beat him to it, mainly because the latter happened to have the added bonus of standing close to me anyway. Paul had just managed to catch me from falling back onto the floor, his hands ending up in a couple of awkward spots as he tried to help me regain my balance.

"Oops, my bad about the hands" Paul immediately apologised for the misplaced appendages, trying to shift one particular hand so that it was no longer cupping my rear, instead settling for holding onto one side of my waist. "But are you alright? You don't even look like you're in a state to walk"

As if to accentuate the truth of his words, my legs started to violently shake when I tried to put pressure on them to stand up on my own two feet, looking closer to a newborn fawn than a human in a number of ways. Paul decided after a couple of seconds that it wasn't a good idea to leave me to walk, instead shifting his hands further so that the blanket enveloped me once more, swinging my knees upwards into the air so that he carried me in his arms.

"What is this, a princess movie?" Gunner couldn't resist making a joke to lighten the mood, something which I had to admit was a lot nicer to laugh at than lament on the fact I might be a nuisance to the lot of them.

"Here, take these with you" Tanner carefully placed the clothes in my hands, letting Paul carry me towards the back of the truck. "Once you guys are done there, we'll get moving so that we can get people off to bed"


	9. Midnight memories

I woke up from a restless sleep with a start, drifting somewhere between sleep and awake for a little bit. My mind tried to calm itself down, reassuring me that everything was fine when another part of my brain started to palm and feel the mattress and blankets around me. It was soft, softer than anything I could remember my bed ever being.

...This wasn't my bed.

With a more urgent part of my brain sparking into gear, I hazily opened my eyes, blearily looking around to see where I was. It was a very long, yet somewhat narrow hallway, where I had been placed down into a bed and subsequently tucked into the covers. As some vague memories of what had happened in the day returned to me, I started to panic just a little bit, unsure about where I had exactly ended up after nearly being kidnapped.

As my vision cleared, I noticed better that I wasn't the only one in the hallway, several hospital looking beds being set up in rows next to each other to fit as many people as they could. The cluster of beds in this hallway seemed to be about ten of them, with me being placed in one of the center beds. The bed directly to my left contained at least one person in it, them snoring very softly in their slumber, and I could tell straight away from the blonde hair on the back of their head that it was Connor.

Looking away from his bed, I peered as best as I could into the dim lighting, noticing several others also being occupied. In the two beds off to the far left of my current bed, seemed to be two people who I was quite certain were Kevin and Marvin. Directly across from me was Bobby, who seemed to somehow be able to sleep with a baseball cap perched over his face, like he had just fallen asleep in the sun rather than in a bed. Curled up on his side, just one bed left of Bobby, seemed to be Gunner. And directly to my right was Paul, who seemed to have been fallen asleep while facing towards my bed, as though he had wanted to keep an eye on me before he too had succumbed to the effects of sleep.

As my mind finally pieced all the puzzle pieces together, did the reasoning of why I was there truly make sense. I could faintly remember that after I had changed out of my clothing, we had departed in the back of the truck back to the company. I couldn't remember anything much beyond the truck winding down some roads, so logic would likely dictate that I had fallen asleep in the truck in that process.

Even before I could ponder why I wasn't put with the other girls, like Paul had promised me, my hand started to fumble around on my bed, soon touching something that softly crinkled underneath. Picking it up, I realised it had to be a small note left behind for me, and I squinted at it in the dark.

'Just in case you wake up before anyone else is able to explain, this note is for you Mila.' 'We had intended to put you with the girls in the Hotel wing of the building, but all of the beds were full there, and Matthias is very specific about beds not being shifted from one wing to another so that people who have different shifts can wake up without the danger of disturbing the others.' 'We then were thinking about leaving you on your own in Lima wing, but Bobby pointed out that you might suddenly freak out and worry if you were left on your own after such a traumatic event.' 'And that's why we decided to bring you with us into Romeo wing, so that when you woke up, you would be surrounded by us instead.' 'Hopefully our decision means you'll feel safer, and as a result, have a better sleep.' 'With love, Tanner.'

I smiled softly to myself, pressing it close to my heart and allowing myself to relax now that I knew I was being taken care of. Without a pen, I sadly couldn't write back a similar note to him, but I did look around the other beds to see if I could spot which one he seemed to be in.

...Which I couldn't find. Like just before, Tanner wasn't in any of the beds, despite what the note implied of him also living in the Romeo wing. However, I did notice one particular bed one to the right of Paul. It wasn't occupied currently, but the wrinkles and unsettled appearance of the sheets seemed to say that  _someone_ had slept in it, and then left.

And it was then that I heard it, a loud noise suddenly breaking the silence from somewhere. I cast a hurried glance to all six men slumbering in their beds, but none of them seemed to even shift at the sound. It sounded out again a moment later, a similar sort of noise echoing down the hallway.

I honestly had no idea what it was, but my curiosity (And possibly my nervous side after the events earlier that night) caused me to want to find out what it was. Slipping out of the hospital bed as quietly as I could, I began to pad down one direction in the hallways in the direction of where I had thought it was coming from.

The noise came back again, sounding almost like it was increasing in frequency. Not just in frequency, but also in volume... I had to be getting closer to it.

Coming to the end of the hallway that the Romeo wing was in, the sound came again, telling me that I had to take a left at the intersection to follow the noise. It almost seemed to be a thud, loud and dull as though someone was just banging something into another object.

After a long amount of me nearly getting lost in the various maze like pathways, I came face to face with a single door, with a little glass window imprinted into the front. Inside the room seemed to be a lot of extra beds, with an extra kitchen and everything needed for living inside of it. I supposed it was the room for some people to shut themselves into if they suddenly got into heat at work, and needed a safe space to be.

With a cautious hand, I tried the door handle, and the door easily opened and let me in. And right there in the middle of the room was a big punching bag set up, with one person angrily circling it.

"GAH!" Tanner threw a punch against the bag, watching it swing in a slow arc away from him, before launching another set of punches at it as it swung back. Even in the dim light, I could tell he was exerting himself in the exercise, his forehead beading sweat while he gritted his teeth. The last one of his many punches missed the bag however, and he seemed to stumble a little forwards due to the lack of resistance. With a heavy sigh, he used the punching bag as support to come back up straight, seeming even more frustrated about something.

"...You can't sleep?" I decided to interrupt him before he could launch into another set, startling him a little in the process. When he turned around, I did notice that I had missed one thing at least in my observation. A really... vital thing that would have been good to notice.

"Ah, sorry, let me just put this away" Tanner apologised when he saw me staring a little wide eyed, patting his bare chest in a bit of a joking manner before he began looking for a shirt that he had no doubt shucked off earlier. "It's just a bit hot right now, you know?"

"Is it? I actually think it's a bit cold, the floor especially" I mumbled, staring down at my feet to give him sort of privacy as he got dressed. "But why are you still up? I figured that after having such a... stressful night, you'd be busy resting in your bed"

"I honestly was thinking that for you as well" Tanner seemed to agree with me, gesturing to the fact I was up as well. "Shouldn't you still be trying to catch some sleep?"

"You're avoiding my question Tanner" My patience for people was running a little thinner than usual, likely a combination of my lack of sleep and the people who had mistreated me. Tanner could immediately notice this snappier version of myself, looking a little embarrassed.

"...It's stupid" Tanner sighed, moving his hands to take off a number of bandages he had wrapped around his knuckles for protection. I was increasingly concerned by how scarlet red they had already become, stained with blood with what undoubtedly been more than just light training. I couldn't stop myself from moving forward, reaching out my hands to stop himself from harshly moving the fabric over his skin.

"Please, let me" I pleaded him for permission, fearing that he'd do more damage to himself if I didn't take over. He seemed as if he wasn't completely sure about the idea, but decided to give me permission anyway, sitting on the edge of one of the many beds that had been set up in the room. Once I was satisfied he wasn't somehow going to hurt himself more, I began to gently unwrap them from his mistreated hands. "How long have you been in here?"

"I don't actually know" Tanner had to admit with a slightly sheepish look on his face, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes seemed to look around for some kind of clock on the wall, but he couldn't find one anywhere. "All I know is that I couldn't get to sleep once everyone bunked down, so rather than toss and turn fruitlessly in my bed for hours, I thought it would help to release some of my frustration here. I've been here for-Ow!-hours at least"

"I'm sorry, I'm being as gentle as I can" I apologised softly to him, trying my best to not hurt his knuckles anymore. I could swear his eyes seemed to linger on the way my hands moved, but I wasn't sure if it was from how delicate I was being or from another epiphany that my hands were incredibly soft. "What are you frustrated about?"

Tanner fell silent at that question, his eyes quickly tilting away from my hands and instead up to my face, glancing all over it at various things. My makeup had no doubt ran when I had cried, so I probably looked even more like a mess now than what I did when Tanner had first seen me at the crime scene. The way his eyes looked at me was immensely powerful, clearly showing some kind of regret and despondency that only came with people you had somehow managed to let down personally.

"...I should have said something. I was thinking to myself during the meeting today that I wasn't sure if that nightclub was safe, as I had heard reports of dodgy things going on, but I didn't say anything" Tanner admitted to me with a heavy heart, obviously very emotionally damaged by what had happened due to his hesitation. "God, if I had just said something, anything! Then you wouldn't have gone through this"

He gripped my hands a little tightly, but luckily not too tightly due to his class, almost seeming like he wanted to tear up from his mistake. I fell silent, just letting him hold onto my hands and listening to him. Even if I had somehow managed to get my words in order, to tell him that it wasn't his fault, it felt like the words would have fallen on deaf ears.

"I also had seen Connor when he got back to the company, even for just a bit. He ran past me at one point to charge into his forge, grabbing all manner of things before sprinting back out, yelling something at me about how someone was in danger" His hands had now relaxed in their somewhat frightfully tight grip, instead choosing to just hold mine in mid-air, as if to find some comfort from them. As though the thought of me being right in front of him, safe, was greater than anything else he could have asked for at that point.  "I had a feeling that it had to be something to do with you, but I defaulted back to my normal training out of panic, instead calling Matthias and his brothers to the company late at night. By the time it had clicked for me that you guys could have used my help, Connor had already called Matt up to tell us it was over"

"...Tanner, you couldn't have known" I decided then was the time to speak up, wanting to assure him somehow that it wasn't his fault now, but I could already see him softly shaking his head as if he didn't agree with me. In response, I made sure to grip his hands extra tight, just so that he could feel that I was still there. "Getting Matthias to the company helped me out a lot! I felt so much safer with him being present at the crime scene, and Kevin, Marvin, Paul and you all did your best to reassure me when I needed someone"

"I should have known better! I've been trained by Matthias on how to react to a bunch of different situations, but when it finally came time for me to use those, I panicked like a stupid child!" Tanner continued to chastise himself, taking his hands away from mine to rub over his face, leaving behind only a reddish hue from the blood he had garnered in his training. When he finally peeked through the gaps in his fingers to look at me, his muffled words seemed to hurt that much more. "It broke me, when you cried there, you know? Even if I hadn't been responsible for this, I would have already felt bad. But knowing that  _I_ did this, I just..."

He couldn't seem to go on, his hands coming up higher to cover his eyes, almost as if he felt he didn't deserve to even look at me. Even though I was uncertain on how I was supposed to help him out of this constant trapping feeling of self-loathing, I knew I wanted to be there for him. Even with him being vastly bigger than me, I did my best to throw my arms entirely around his shoulders, almost trying to envelop him in a hug like he had managed to do for me earlier.

Slowly, he allowed himself the liberty of shifting his hands away from his eyes, and tenderly wrapping them around me in a similar hug to what I was doing. Soon I could hear that his breathing had slowed down again, a much calmer rhythm that then in turn soothed me. What did strike me as a little odd however, was the fact he seemed to be super warm. Way warmer than earlier, he honestly felt like I had decided to hug a heater rather than a human being.

Eventually gently prying myself from his embrace, I pulled myself only slightly back so that I could look at his face again, his mellow blue eyes a lot less panicked, but not completely free of melancholy.

"It wasn't your fault" I told him firmly, to which I could already see his mind disagreeing with in some capacity. The moment he opened his mouth however, I stubbornly stopped him from changing his mind-set to the opposite. "No. You didn't do anything wrong"

Tanner looked honestly like he wanted to open his mouth and counter it once more, but decided against it when he saw how likely it was that I would correct him once more. I honestly would change it back until I was blue in the face, and definitely until he allowed himself to let go of these possible things he had done.

We stayed there for a long while, just me wanting him to not beat himself up over it, and him wanting me to be safe. In the end, something did switch in his eyes, deciding that at least trying to accept this was a way for us both to shift our thinking towards the positive. But most of all, I suspected it was also because Tanner was finally starting to feel tired now that he had let everything out.

"I'll try to think along those lines, if that's what you want me to" Tanner eventually conceded, yawning into the back of his hand and slightly stretching his sore shoulder muscles out. Something in the air did make me pause for a moment, trying to figure out what a sudden peculiar smell was hanging in the air. "God, I could really use a good ol' nap right about now"

"Before we head back, did you cook something?"

"Huh? No, no I didn't" Tanner seemed just as confused as I did, sniffing the air a moment later. He shrugged his shoulders, obviously unsure about what I had managed to pick up. "Why, what does it smell like?"

"I don't know... something spicy? Like, some kind of chilli?" I suggested the two options, honestly unsure what either of those could mean outside of normal cooking. "Maybe one of our co-workers decided to make a dish in here during the day? Honestly, I don't have a clue"

When I turned back around to look at Tanner, did I notice his expression had changed drastically from before. Gone was the tired, still somewhat emotional side in his eyes, this was pure unadulterated concern, but not in the pleasant kind. But most of all, he seemed to be completely locked on me, in a very different way from before.

"...Mila, can you please do me a favour?" Tanner asked me, his mannerisms coming across to me as a bit weird. On the one hand, he seemed to want to touch my shoulder, to make sure I understood this was serious, only to hurriedly retract his hand as if he was afraid of what might happen should he allow himself to actually come into contact with me. His entire body language screamed that he wanted to move closer towards me, but instead he dutifully took a step back from me, as if to keep a good space between us. After a long while of wondering what was the right thing to do, I slowly nodded my head. "Please, leave this room and go and find Paul. Wake him up, and tell him I'm feeling very, very, VERY warm"

"Okay?..." I half questioned the request, but also didn't think it was a good thing for Tanner if I refused to do it.

"If he doesn't get that, then tell him that Connor probably is also feeling very warm right about now" He made sure to tell me this slowly, almost as if he was afraid of what might happen should I not manage to convey what he wanted to Paul. I once again nodded my head, still confused about what this all meant together. "Good, that's good. Now please, hurry"

The moment Tanner effectively gave me permission to go, I dashed out of the room, not even caring about how loud my bare feet slapped against the tiled floor. I cast a somewhat confused and conflicted glance behind me, but Tanner hadn't followed behind me out of the room. After I realised that, my rushing soon escalated into running, zipping down the hallways in a mad dash to get back to the Romeo wing. I sure as heck didn't know  _what_  was going on, but I knew it was of grave importance.

Despite being confident that I was going to get lost in the hallways earlier in the day, I found it quite easy to remember my way back, practically sprinting until I reached the wing I wanted. Unlike the banging noise Tanner had managed to make earlier, the noise of me running was enough to rouse at least one person out of the sleeping men, Bobby slightly sitting up in his bed and shifting the baseball cap off his face to see me running in.

"...Mila? Why are you up?" Bobby groggily asked me, clearly not a hundred percent awake by the drowsy look in his eyes.

"Something's wrong with Tanner" I quickly blurted out, honestly unsure about how else I was supposed to word it. "He told me to come and get Paul, but I don't know what's wrong"

Bobby, regardless of the fact that he had only half of the clues that I had to go on, seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. He seemed to instantly perk up, as if my news was some kind of caffeine to hit his system, practically jumping out of his bed to start shaking and waking Gunner beside him.

"Paul! Paul, please wake up, Tanner needs you!" I nervously cried out to him, gently slapping his easiest available cheek in order to then rouse him from his own slumber. Like Bobby, he too seemed to be half asleep, blearily looking up at me from his bed without really moving at all.

"Hm?... Who's... Mila, what is it?" Paul sluggishly asked me, only one of his eyes even being fully open to stare up at me. "What's wrong, did you have a nightmare?"

"No, there's something wrong with Tanner! He said, um... he said he was feeling warm?" I wasn't even sure if I was asking him if that was what was happening or telling him, not really sure if the words meant anything to him. For the time being he didn't seem to get it, looking up at me with about the same confused look on his face as I felt. At the very least, his other eye had opened as well, which meant I had more of his attention. "He also said something about how Connor would be probably feeling as warm as he is? I don't know, I didn't really get it"

It took a couple of seconds for my words to sink in, but once they did, I got a similar reaction from him as Bobby had done at the news. He shot up in his bed, looking around him in a slight panicked manner, especially when he didn't see Tanner in the bed beside him.

"Where is he?" Paul quickly asked me, stepping out of bed in a hurried manner like Bobby had done, his arm protectively coming around my shoulders as if there was some kind of danger.

"I'm not exactly sure what it's used for, but it's a room filled with a lot of beds and a kitchen. There's also a whole set of bathrooms and showers towards the back"

"Thank goodness, he's already in the isolation room" Paul seemed to let out a relieved breath, but quickly jumping back into a leadership type of role. "Alright, now let's wake up all the guys here so that we don't have to come back to this wing later. Once everyone's awake, you go with Kevin and Marvin, okay? Tell them it's a code Green-Red"

"Green-Red, got it" I affirmed, and Paul smiled at me for quickly understanding and not asking too many questions despite the fact I didn't know what on Alfu a Green-Red code was supposed to mean. It was likely just because explaining would take too long, and because taking too long was dangerous in some way.

Once I got my instructions, Paul moved off to Bobby and Gunner, giving them a different set of instructions to what I was getting. Kevin and Marvin, despite seeming as tired as I felt, were steadily waking up on their own. Which just left Connor, who for some reason had been untouched by the others.

I myself moved over to wake Connor up, gently laying a hand on the nearest shoulder I could reach to tussle him a little. The first moment I noticed my mistake was when I felt how glowing hot Connor's skin felt to the touch, being comparable to Tanner when I had hugged him. While Paul and Bobby needed far more than a gentle push to wake them up, Connor almost instantly seemed to react to my touch, sitting up and looking around in a confused manner.

In fact, his face almost seemed to scream that he was delirious, it being entirely red and sweaty as what Tanner had looked like when he was fighting the punching bag. Eventually his eyes seemed to find something focus on, them keenly gazing towards me, with a strange look in his eyes that I couldn't place.

"...Marshmallows?" He half-asked and half-stated, obviously still a little feverish, reaching out with a single hand as though he wanted to double check that I was real in front of him.

Before anything could happen further however, Bobby leapt in between the both of us, his arms securely keeping Connor and I separated. The moment Connor's arm seemed to try and reach around Bobby to touch me again, Bobby let out a full blown growl, causing him to shrink back away from me. Paul managed to pull me back from the situation before anything worse could happen between the two of them, hurriedly starting to push me towards Kevin and Marvin at the other end of the beds.

"Damn it, I thought I had more time before Bobby was going to show signs as well. Here's hoping it was just a momentary protective move from him, rather than him actually slipping into it too" Paul worriedly mumbled to himself, before squaring his shoulders and pushing me over to Kevin and Marvin. "Go, I mean it; it's probably not safe for you three here anymore. Find Matthias and declare a Romeo wing Green-Red, with a possibility of it being the entire company"

"You got it" Kevin took the words quite heavily, hurriedly taking one of my hands while Marvin took the other, already fast-walking away from the ensuing situation behind us. Only once we were out of earshot, did the two of them finally start to mumble in worry like Paul had done. "This doesn't make any sense! Bryan is not even completely out of his heat yet, it shouldn't be time for the Beta yet!"

"Massive onsets of stress can cause the heats to strike early" Marvin seemed to think, to which Kevin just worried his lip between his teeth. "I'd say that today was a really stressful day for everyone, so this isn't completely out of the blue in my opinion"

"Still! I thought we'd have more time" Kevin sighed in exasperation, and only with these final conversations was I starting to understand what was going on.

"So, a code Green-Red is essentially meaning..." I left the end of my sentence off on purpose, wanting to hear the truth from them rather than leave it to chance that I had gotten it wrong.

"That the Beta are going into heat"


	10. Don't stop believing

The three of us headed off to another room in the building that could be isolated, albeit a much smaller one that was equipped for five people at the most, with Marvin keeping watch while me and Kevin fell asleep in two of the beds for however many hours we could catch. Around two hours later, as I found out from Marvin when I had asked him how long it had been, someone knocked on the door loud enough to wake everyone in the room.

"Hey, could you guys open the door for me please?" We could hear Jfred ask us through the door, and Marvin easily obliged while Kevin and me rubbed our eyes in an attempt to wake up again. When he stepped in, he seemed to look more rested than we felt at the time, but there were still signs of sleep deprivation there. "Wow guys, you honestly look like crud"

"I feel like it too" I grumbled to myself, which at least the others found somewhat funny. Their laughter in turn helped me to remind myself that things were fine, and that things would sort out with them there to help me. "What are we doing?"

"Matt told me to come find you in particular; he needs you to come for... I don't know, legal stuff" Jfred pointed at me, but then shrugged his shoulders when he realised that he wasn't really sure what I was summoned for. "I'm just acting as a precaution, but he thinks that the sudden jump into heat by the others shouldn't be all that big of a deal"

"Thank goodness, that means I can go back to sleep" Kevin let out an obviously half-hearted cheer, proceeding to literally collapse into one of the beds in the room. Marvin laughed at his drowsy attitude, but seemed like he was just as likely as him to go ahead and doze off again.

"Please do, we need you two at your best very soon" Jfred seemed oddly serious, especially compared to what I had seen of him around Blaire, but I honestly wasn't so sure why it was noteworthy to remember that. "We shouldn't need you two for anything else, so catch as much sleep as you can. Mila, you follow me"

Almost frightened a little by his strict tone, I hopped off the bed and followed behind him out of the room. I still had yet found the opportunity to get some proper clothing to fit me, still wearing some oversized sweater and night gown that didn't belong to me in the slightest, but I honestly felt this wasn't the time to complain about it.

"Uh, Jfred? What did Matthias mean by 'the others shouldn't be a problem'?" I asked him at one point, seeing his eyebrows raise a little in surprise at my apparent naivety towards Beta heats. "Surely they should be avoided while in their heat, like I was always told about with Alpha?"

"You've never encountered a Beta in heat before, have you?" Jfred correctly guessed, which was true, as both of my parents had been Omega just like myself. He chuckled a somewhat dry note when he saw me nod, as though he was surprised to find someone who hadn't seen one before. "Honestly, Beta are very placid during their heat. Sure, they are really amped up and horny, but the worst they get to is complaining about it with someone random. They never force themselves on someone in their heat, with the worst result being that they feel something akin to pain from the build-up"

"Oh, is that all?" I asked him, which I immediately got a nod in response to it. I found it very odd, as I was always warned to never be around Alpha OR Beta during their heat, but maybe that was just my parents being protective of me.

"Yup, that's all" Jfred cemented that idea in my head, sighing softly as he gently rubbed one temple of his in a way to relieve some pain he was experiencing. Perhaps it was a combination of the suppressants he was still taking and from being too tired? "Even Matthias was pissed when he was called up two hours ago, Marvin shouting something into the phone about how we were experiencing a companywide Green-Red. Everybody knows that Beta only really get antsy when they're interested in someone"

I fell silent for a moment, not really responding to his statement as I remembered several incidents from the moments before in the night cycle. Tanner had shown an obvious discomfort, literally making me run and get Paul after I had made a remark about some smell in the air. And just after that, an incident had happened between Connor and Bobby, with the latter literally _growling_ at him. Then immediately after that, Paul had forcibly separated me from the two of them, mumbling something about how he was worried about Bobby going into his heat, and then had sent me off with Kevin and Marvin...

...It was weird, to say the least.

"Here we are" Jfred stopped me with a gentle hand to my shoulder to stop me from going any further, pointing over to the door that I had entered not long before. It would be a dream come true for me to remember my way around the building half as well as Jfred managed to do some day. He knocked loudly on the steel submarine-ish door, obviously too tired to care about how loud the noise was. A moment later, someone spoke through the porthole, the top of Matthias' head popping up there to peer through.

"What's the password?" Matthias checked us, despite the fact he could see it was the both of us. It should have been obvious that he would recognise me, as I was wearing a pitch black sweater over a grey nightgown like before, but Jfred felt he had to respond before he would be allowed in.

"There isn't one" Jfred put plainly, yawning a second later, possibly from both boredom and drowsiness. With an exaggerated sigh, Matthias cranked the door open and waved us in. I could catch the same spicy hint in the air as I could before, along with something else thrown in there that I couldn't place, but I didn't think much of it.

"We really need to start having proper passwords for the company, not just out on contracts for other people" Matthias grumbled, his face showing just how little he had slept. He didn't even look like he had managed to get any sleep, deep dark circles under his eyes, and a perpetual frown placed on his face from the fact he had been called in once more in the same night cycle. "Ah, Mila, you're here. Good, good... find a seat there at the table for me, would you?"

At the sound of my name, several of the others turned their heads to the door, obviously surprised to see me back. I was likely just as surprised as them, mainly from the fact there only were the five men that I knew from the Romeo wing in the room, literally no others being there.

"I'm guessing it wasn't companywide?" I guessed with Matthias, sitting down at the solitary table set up in the middle of the room, obviously replacing the punching bag that been there before. Paul was already sitting directly across from me at the table, looking a little upset to see that Matthias had gone against his wishes of not bringing me back around them.

"Nope, just these five for some stupid reason. Connor, get your butt over here too, we got work to do" Matthias grumbled, opening his mouth for just a second to chuck in a piece of candy, chewing on it like it was his lifeline. "I can't believe I'm pulling a Kyanna right now to keep awake"

"Not to talk about the elephant in the room, but um... why is Mila here?" Tanner asked the question that seemed to be on all five of their minds, cautiously taking a seat in the chair to the left of me, purposefully sitting on his hands as though he was worried they would go wandering. "Surely it's dangerous to-

"Oh hush, there's no danger with her being here, stop acting like you're all Alpha" Matthias cut him off, digging through a satchel he brought with him, before taking out several unwritten notebooks and placing one in front of me, Bobby, Connor and Gunner. Connor, who seemed to still be bright red, was wiping his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief that he must have pillaged from the room. "So, I have bad news and good news, which do you want to hear first?"

"Both" I surprised him a little by blurting that out, not really wanting to delay the news any longer. I half expected him to get mad at me for trying to rush him, but he seemed to find it a little funny, soon nodding his head in some form of mild agreement.

"Fair enough, I'd want someone to hurry up and tell me too. Anyway, so the biggest part of the news is that an hour ago, I received a phone call from the police" Matthias sighed, sitting down in the middle of the table, digging out more of what seemed to be legal documents for the four of us to sign. "The bad part is that the family of the bar owner, Tadashi Haruna, have formed a defence team and have opted to pursue claims against you four for unlawful murder-

"Of course they have" Connor grumbled, digging his hands through his hair in frustration. Bobby and Gunner were very silent in contrast to him of course, the both of them going sheet white with the news. They were the most likely to be charged with the claims after all.

"And they must have greased some palms, because the court is willing to run our case through their system in just a week. I know they must have picked that very specifically, because they're probably hoping to catch you guys during your heat, when you're less likely to make a good judgement call" Matthias sighed even louder, rubbing his temples a little between his fingers. He looked a lot older than he had seemed when I had first applied, the long night highlighting all of his wrinkles and blemishes. "The good news is that because of the short notice of the date, it's an open court case, which means the defence and prosecution are allowed to bring their own evidence in. This means that we will be able to bypass the police bias and just deal with some random Alpha lawyer of theirs, who will be running the prosecution team. And you guys know what that means"

"They'll fail, because Alpha aren't smart" I confidently clenched my fist and raised it in a victorious manner. Gunner and Bobby were too frightened with the prospect of the court case, and Connor and Tanner were still off in a delirious state because of their fever, so that just left Paul to laugh at my enthusiasm. "No offense Jfred"

"None taken" Jfred grinned, knowing full well that thinking wasn't his strong point. He knew he was a muscle man, and he was quite proud of it too.

"Exactly" Matthias agreed with my sentiment, some kind of a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "Most of the evidence I'll acquire and compile, but I need you guys to sign these documents for me so that it's legally binding that I represent you all, write a victim impact statement there in those notebooks, and also write down some extra things that you remember that could serve as evidence in another page"

"A victim what now?" Gunner asked, causing Matthias to pinch the bridge of his nose. I decided to speak up before Matthias could get frustrated further, cutting off what might be a downward spiral in his thought process.

"It's a sort of speech that you read out to the jury during a case, telling them about how this entire thing has impacted you" I told him, gently opening the notebook in front of me to the first page. "It's often done to make people feel more empathetic towards your cause, usually done by the victim of a situation"

"And we are victims of this whole shenanigan, so it makes sense" Connor mumbled, opening his own notebook and looking tired before he had even begun. "God, I don't even know what to write"

"Just make it truthful to yourself. Jury members are good at spotting when you're just winging it" Matthias explained loosely to him, waving a hand nonchalantly back and forth in the air, before noticing something wrong with Bobby, whose eyebrows were furrowed in confusion towards the legal papers put in front of him. "What's wrong Bobby?"

"We have the same last name" Bobby pointed out, his pen hovering just a little above the page, obviously unsure about if he was supposed to sign his name there. "If someone looks at the papers, then they'll notice that we're related"

"Write it in really loopy cursive" Paul suggested, miming a pen scribbling some really unreadable words in the air. "Imitate doctors when they write you some kind of prescription and you can never read their words correctly"

That joke was enough to make everyone around the table laugh, Bobby doing exactly as he had suggested. When I peered at it after he was done, I could hardly recognise the second half of his sentence, being just barely able to tell that the beginning even had 'Bobby' in it.

"Now, I'm going to leave and finally go to sleep at my home, next to my loving wife" Matthias let out a tired groan, pushing himself off the table and motioning for Jfred to leave with him as well. "I'll be back tomorrow to look at the impact statements and talk about what evidence we can get"

"Ah, wait! Shouldn't Mila be back in the isolation room for the Omega?" Tanner stopped them from leaving for a moment, the other four men tilting their heads that way to see what Matthias' response should be.

"No, she really shouldn't. Part of our defence is going to be the fact that you guys were extremely worried for her, which you were, and so we'll double down on that front so that the jury really believes it as well" Matthias said this at the same time as yawning into the palm of his hand, and I could see several of the Beta shift in their seats at the news. "It's not that you guys weren't, but for some reason the jury might believe it was a fib if they learn that you all only knew her for a couple of hours, so we need to fix that. Learn a lot about each other, practically learn so much that you could complete an entire book about them, and adjust your statements to fit this"

"But-

"I'm not arguing with you guys over this" Matthias stopped anymore disagreeing with a harsh tone to his words, slapping Jfred lightly in his shoulder, which of course got an exaggerated scream as a response, grumbling to his younger brother about how he needed to hurry up and open the door. "Try to get some sleep after you guys are done, 'kay?"

With that, the door closed with a heavy thud, the metal door locking tightly and leaving just us six in the room. I tried to laugh off the awkward atmosphere that seemed to be in the room, but it seemed quite obvious after a second or two that it wasn't helping. Either Jfred's description of Beta was wrong, or these guys were... a little more invested in me than first met the eye.


	11. Glory of love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steamy times ahoy ;)

_"...It breaks my heart to see you crying. I don't want to lose you... I could never make it alone. I am a man, who would fight, for your honour. I'll be the hero, you're dreaming of. We'll live forever, knowing together, that we did it all for the glory of love"_

* * *

Only a couple of minutes later, Connor mumbled something about being too tired (And hot) to work on his victim statement, literally crashing into one of the beds in the back. Gunner, Paul and Bobby each seemed to think along the same lines as him, trudging off to some other beds, obviously desiring the sleep after the busy night.

Imagine my surprise when the one who had the least amount of sleep was the one still trudging around, wandering aimlessly around the room for something to do.

"You really should be sleeping" I decided to interrupt his third lap around Paul's bed, making him lift his head in a startled daze, as though he had forgotten for a moment that I was there. The moment he was reminded of my presence however, he suddenly became really fidgety, especially so in his hands. They began to pull on fraying edges of his clothing, before he noticed that I was staring at them, and he then proceeded to dig them into his pockets as if to hide them from me.

"Ah, you know" He spoke with such an obviously uninterested tone, hoping to somehow make me lose interest or talk about something else, but he seemed unsure about what else we could really be talking about. "I don't feel all that sleepy"

"Because of your heat?" I asked him, and I could spy his uncomfortableness grow with the mention of it. He cleared his throat loudly in such a manner that almost gave me the impression that his throat was really raw, or perhaps in the hopes that someone else would wake up so that it wouldn't just be me and him on our own there.

"Yeah, something like that" He remained as vague as he could, and I could tell quite easily that he was trying to lie about the subject or downplay it.

So far his actions fell in line with what Jfred said someone would act... but only if they were interested in someone else. I was really curious by this point about which was true, so I looked around for something for the two of us to do, as I knew that I could only really find the answer out by hanging out with him more. My eyes eventually landed on a small holovision nearby, with a sort of game station attached to it.

"Do you maybe want to play some games with me?" I asked him, pointing over to the set nearby. He looked like he wanted to refuse it, mainly to stay away from me, but I had the perfect excuse for it. "I've never actually played a video game in my life, so I really want to see what I've missed out on"

"...You've never played a video game?" Tanner asked me, his voice betraying his utter shock with that statement. I smiled and nodded at him, already remembering how my classmates back at school had reacted in the same way when I had told them. "Man, Connor would have a heart attack if he heard that. I, um... I guess we could play a couple of rounds"

"Awesome!" I cheered somewhat quietly, wanting to show him how excited I was but not proceed to wake the others. I plopped down on a little tiny cushion in front of it, my dishevelled hair flying up in several ways before flopping back down inelegantly. In a far calmer manner, Tanner gently brought himself down onto the cushion next to me, slotting some unknown video game into the station. "What are we playing?"

"It's a kind of racing game" He explained, looking a lot more comfortable with his hands around the controller after he handed me mine. "You control these little carts, see? The aim is to pass by the other racers and finish in first place"

"Oh! Cool, how do you make it go?" I asked him, watching him slightly lean over to me to peer at the controller in the relative darkness of the room. He was a little close, but so far he hadn't seemed to notice it due to my request for helping.

"That button right there" He pointed to a particular brightly coloured button, before pointing over to another one directly beside it. "And that one you can press if you pick up an item around the track"

"How do I get an item?" I suddenly had to pay attention to the screen, as the race seemed to begin with a flurry of bright colours.

"You run through the blue boxes" He calmly said, seeming very laid back in terms of actually winning the race, his tone adopting a deeper tone due to how tired he was likely feeling (Still not as deep as Bobby's of course, my sleep addled brain did at least register that). Ah, he was finally allowing his tiredness to catch up to him. "Sorry, Connor's probably better at explaining this than I am"

"You're doing fine" I giggled, laughing a little at both his sudden switch to tired Tanner and because of the wacky things going on the screen. He was fully invested in the race, not even glancing at me at his side. While I was a bit bummed out to not really get an answer to why he was so unsettled by my presence, at least he seemed to be having a fun time. "So what do we get if we win?"

"Ah, I didn't really think much about that" Tanner mumbled a little, taking his eyes off the screen of the holovision for a moment to look around us. Right as he got distracted, the character in my little cart passed by his with a slight jostle to his cart, sending his character flying off the track. I giggled to myself by the sudden flailing arms of his character, but he didn't realise something was amiss just yet. "There's some dare dice over here, maybe we can-...Did you just knock off my character?"

"Bow before the master of this game" I teased him, giggling furiously when I saw his face break out in a grin, his entire body shifting slightly forward in a concentrated and competitive manner.

"Oh, you're in for it now" He countered my tone with his own mischievous kind, his grin taking a wolfish glint to it. But his determination came too late, as by the time his character had nearly caught up with mine, I had managed to cross the finish line in first place. "Darn! Agh, and I nearly had you too"

"Better luck next time, getting me is a little bit harder than you think" I chose my words purposefully, hoping to elicit another reaction out of him. He seemed to be completely distracted by the fact I had won, so my words went completely over his head. "So what were you saying about dice?"

"Dare dice, we have some over here from the last time we were locked in here for our heat" Tanner explained, picking up a pair of dice that were coloured a bright pink and purple. The pink one held words on it such as 'pinch', 'punch' and some others that I couldn't spy straight away, while the purple one mainly seemed to have various locations on the human body. "They're not that great, but we don't have better ones"

"Give it here then" I accepted the dice from him with a little bit of a flourish, his hand retracting a little again as though he was unsure about the fact we had touched hands for a brief second. He was getting flustered about how close we were again, and I was really hoping he wouldn't retract into himself before I could figure it out.

I threw the dice a little lopsidedly onto the floor between us in the lighting of the holovision's blue glow, and the purple one seemed to immediately land on 'cheek'. Tanner inhaled sharply at the sight of that one, obviously hoping that the other wasn't going to land on something horrific like punch or slap. I wondered for a moment why he even was worried about that one, as I had the wimpiest muscles ever to grace their company.

But no, I'd say it was accurate that we were both more surprised when the pink one landed on a side that we hadn't seen before.

"...Kiss" Tanner repeated the command, completely frozen on the spot for a moment as his brain tried to catch up with what that meant. His eyes flicked back over to the purple dice, then back to the pink one, and only then did it seem like he understood. "You... You don't have to-

"I'm alright with it" I cut him off before he could come up with a million reasons for why I wouldn't have to do that, even sounding so curt that someone could, and rightly so, assume that I was afraid that he wouldn't let me. "I... I want to"

His eyebrows raised in another show of shock, clearly confused on why I would want to. My firm demeanour and calm eyes seemed to be enough to prove to him that I wasn't kidding around, and he seemed to at least allow his face to return to normal. Feigning that the idea wasn't fazing him at all, he turned his head slightly to the side so that I could easily reach his cheek, but I couldn't miss the way his hands were tightly wound around his thighs to keep his hands from going anywhere unexpected.

Leaning forward from my cushion softly, I placed my hands on his shoulders to get better balance before I softly pressed my lips to his cheek. His skin was hot to the touch, which wasn't all that surprising considering the fact he was still in his heat, but I could smell that vibrant spice again underneath my nose.

...Ah, so the spicy smell from earlier was coming off of Tanner. That did make sense, as he was the only one in the room at the time with me, and there was no way I was smelling myself then.

I found myself wanting to find it for some reason, and that led me more downwards towards his collar bone instead, my lips still fully in contact with his skin as I trailed down. Tanner soon started to slightly angle his face further away from me, almost sounding like he was trying to suppress some kind of giggle coming out of his throat. He was ticklish as well!

"Hehe, stop that!" Tanner protested lightly, giggling as he finally started to bring his hands up to bring me away before he could dissolve into a tittering puddle. He was relaxing again around me, taking the entire interaction as a lot more light-hearted than he had before. "What are you doing?"

"I wanted to see you smile" I told him, especially because it was partially why I kept tickling him after I had realised that he was prone to it himself. Before he could dwell on why he wasn't smiling before, I picked up his controller and thrust it into his hands and turned back to the holovision. "Come on, let's go again!"

Tanner seemed to agree, even being able to compose himself before I had managed to get a head start on his character. This time he was good at proving that he was far better at it that I was, remaining in first place from the moment he had gained it until the end of the race. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, as he literally knew the game long before I had even heard of it.

"I was so close!" I huffed a little childishly, causing Tanner to chuckle next to me. He then cast a quick glance over to the beds off in the room, making sure that our excitement hadn't really woken them up, before turning back to me. He seemed a little startled when I handed him the dice that I had previously used, very nearly dropping them immediately. "You won, so it's only fair that you get to roll the dice"

"I don't really think I'd want to hit you if it landed on something like that" Tanner sighed, but threw the dice anyway, perhaps just to please me because I had insisted to him that it was fair. The purple one landed immediately on 'neck' and this time it was the both of us who sharply inhaled. After all, there was no way the pink one was going to...

...It landed on kiss again.

"Are these dice loaded or something?" I asked him with a bit of a carefree attitude, but it was obvious that his skittish nature had returned at the mention. The moment it became something that he would have to ask me for permission for was a step too far, as it wouldn't be easy to just pretend it had nothing to do with him possibly feeling something for me. "Tanner?"

"Hm? Oh, right... uh..." Tanner trailed off for a moment, his eyes shifting down to the dice for a moment again. They hadn't changed, and neither of us had mistaken what was on them, so he was stuck with the one he had managed to roll. "You're... You're fine with this?"

"As long as you are" I assured him, shifting myself slightly on the cushion so that I was able to pull down the turtle neck part of the oversized sweater I had been given.

He seemed stuck on whether to go fast so that he was done quicker or slower so that he didn't bump me with his nose or something similar, so he appeared a little odd, rushing himself forward until he was hovering over me like I had done, only to slow down to a crawl once his lips were near there. Pausing for a moment there, he seemed to find it necessary to comment on the sweater I was wearing before he went for it.

"...You're wearing my sweater" His voice rumbled in close proximity to my skin, my voice unconsciously letting out an 'oh' in realisation. I suppose I could have figured that part out myself, as the sweater was quite large, and it didn't look like something that Jfred nor Bryan would wear. "Kind of reminds me of those stories see in movies and holovision shows, you know? Where the girlfriend finds it funny or comfy to wear her boyfriend's clothing..."

...Ah. That comment... was definitely not platonically meant, I just knew it.

He surprised me a little by choosing to press his lips to my neck right at that moment, his left hand coming up to support the other side, maybe even to push my neck closer to him. It was soft at first, far softer than what I had done to his cheek, as if he had wanted to imitate rose petals against my silky skin. Only a couple of seconds later did he seem... hungry for more, his lips retracting for just a moment to open and widen the kiss in a wider radius with a stronger intensity to it.

My legs wriggled against each other underneath him, the sensual feelings sparking from that sensation and causing me to squirm on the spot. Taking a deep breath in to not begin to hyperventilate, I let out a pleased hum, one which he keenly felt from the way my throat purred from the satisfaction. Longing to get more of a reaction out of me, he began to gently push me backwards off the cushion, all the way back until he had brought me down onto the floor, his lips remaining attached all the while. Only when my back had rested against the hardwood floors did he relent, releasing my neck from his hold, lifting himself slightly away and resting his hands around my head.

"You smell sweet..." He purred, taking a deep breath in to truly be able to concentrate on that, watching my nearly breathless reactions with desire in his blue eyes. "Like some kind of soft candy..."

Ah, that was right. Connor had mumbled something about marshmallows before...

I giggled aloud at the idea of having such a girly smell around me, even though it shouldn't have surprised me all that much considering I literally  _was_ a girl. My giggling caused Tanner to become confused, clearly a little flustered on what was suddenly so funny in the middle of our canoodling. It did serve to make him pause for a moment however, taking a deep breath in and suddenly seeming very choked up by something.

"Excuse me for a moment" He pardoned himself, picking himself up off me and speed walking over to the little kitchenette that was in the room. He dug around in the spice cabinets for something specific, and with my bout of laughter curing me of my hazy thoughts, I stood up and followed him a little more slowly into the kitchen. Eventually finding what he wanted, he took some kind of pepper mill from the cabinet and placed it directly under his nose, seemingly purposefully doing so, so that he could make himself sneeze. "Ha... Ha-CHOO!"

"Snorting pepper is definitely on my list of top ten things to do after getting jiggy with someone else" I cheekily addressed him, to which he seemed to laugh. His laughter seemed to be with poor timing however, as he then coughed harshly from the pepper fumes flying into his throat. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I was just... a little out of control" Tanner had to admit, wafting the pepper mill underneath his nose for a moment to clear it out again. "Bryan told me that dust from a desert planet works really well, but I don't have that, so I thought pepper might clear out the scent in my system"

"You know, Jfred told me that Beta are generally quite calm during their heat except for one particular reason" I decided to finally test the waters and ask him outright what he was getting to fidgety about, and I could spy that I was on the right case when he averted his eyes for a brief second. "They only get antsy when they're interested in someone"

"...I'm surprised you didn't figure it out before" Tanner sighed softly, placing the pepper down on the nearby counter now that he felt he was calm enough to not lose his cool like before. "I know, its bad timing with what just happened, but... I don't know, you are such a force of positivity that I can't help but want to take care of you"

"Aww, that's so sweet!" I couldn't help but say, something which seemed to make him really flustered.

"Don't 'aww' me! I'm not sweet, I'm manly as heck!" Tanner protested, but I could tell it was coming more from the fact he didn't know how to react to my praise. I giggled at the sound of him denying that he was cute, and he seemed to chuckle a little at least in response to that.

"Well, whatever you see yourself as, I like it" I told him, slowly watching his face to see his reactions. It was slow, as though he still couldn't believe that I perhaps felt the same way for him, so I decided to hug him to prove it to him somehow.  He tensed for a moment like a couple of hours ago, but soon I could feel his entire body relax underneath my hands. 

"...Man, I'm going to need a whole lot of pepper this week"


	12. Shape of my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, steamy moments are rolling in ;)

_"Baby, please try to forgive me. Stay here, don't put out the glow. Hold me now... don't bother, if every minute it makes me weaker. You can save me, from the man that I've become"_

* * *

Now fully content with the fact I was in the same room as them, Tanner let himself slowly drift off to sleep in one of the beds that weren't occupied. I was just about to go and find my own, when someone else roused themselves from slumber out of the five, stumbling their way over to the table in the middle of the room.

"...Connor?" I asked the person, assuming it had to be him due to the fact the build of the person was quite girthy, and I was sure that Tanner was taller than him. I got an affirmative grunt from the person, which confirmed that indeed, it was Connor that had woken up. "What are you doing up?"

"Bedsh too hot" He slurred the 's' in his sentence quite heavily, clearly still being about as delirious as he was before he had taken his relatively short nap. In fact, he seemed to have gotten worse, being so woozy that he seemed to have difficulty just staying upright in his chair. Concerned for his safety, I opted to move closer to him to make sure he wasn't going to take a surprise dive off the stool, moving around to the other side of the table to at least give him some reprieve from my scent. He seemed to be at least somewhat coherent, enough to see me across from him, and he seemed to find it necessary to explain further about why he had specifically sought out to come back to the table. "I wanted to work on my victim shtatement, sheeing ash I don' wanna fall asleep right now anyway"

"You look drunk" I pointed out to him, seeing him wobble and weave around like he was on a rocking boat rather than flat ground. He attempted to get one shoulder to come up in a shrugging motion, but used the other to stabilise himself so that he wouldn't tilt too much one way. "What makes you think your mind is clearer right now than before?"

"...Don' know" He mumbled, his writing hand hovering above the notebook like he was about to write, but couldn't think about what he actually wanted to put down. After a bit more wobbling, he decided that he didn't have anything yet, putting the pen down at the side very delicately, before leaning against the back of his chair and staring at me again. Despite his feverish state, his eyes were sharp, as though the problem was just entirely down to his body failing him instead of his brain. "Wash kinda hopin' that my heat would make me lessh shcared to write my thing"

"Less scared?" That question earned me a slight frown, it being obvious that when I had said it aloud, that he had realised that it was the wrong word to describe the situation right now.

"Nah, more... embarressh'd. A heat meansh that most people have more courage, less inhibitionsh" Connor tried to explain to me, but I had to admit that it was getting harder and harder to not find his sudden lisp very adorable. "I thought that it meant that I would be able to write what I actually feel, but it'sh shtill... difficult"

"Can I help somehow?" I asked him with a slight tilt to my head, and he seemed to ponder it at the very least. After much consideration, he seemed to relent, giving his answer in another shrug of the shoulders, as though to seem disinterested with the notion.

I did seriously want to help him somehow, so I stood up and circled around the table until I stood directly behind his left shoulder. So far the notebook was blank, with nothing even remotely scribbling in the pages. It looked eerily similar to mine, neither of us really being in this sort of problem in the past. It was quite scary to me to suddenly be dragged into court, and I could no doubt imagine that he was feeling the same way.

"So, what are you thinking of writing?" I decided to start the conversation somehow, and he sighed heavily, placing his chin in the palm of his hand.

"...It'sh shtupid" He muffled his words into the back of his other hand, giving me a sense of deja vu due to the fact I was quite certain I had heard that from someone else that night as well. "A victim impact shtatement is shupposhed to be about how the thing hash affected ush, but I... ugh, crud, I jusht want to write about you"

"Well, maybe-Wait a moment, did you say that you wanted to write about me?" I asked him, unsure if the lisp had somehow led me stray. He nodded his head, and I found myself a little bit surprised by the sudden courage he was showing. I practically had to fight tooth and nail with Tanner to make him admit that he liked me, but here Connor was just... saying it.

"I should be writing about what I felt then, right?" He asked me, to which I nodded. He began to loosely doodle in his notebook as he spoke, aimlessly making loops and circles, but certainly no words were being inscribed. "Well, all I wash thinking then was how afraid I wash that you were going to get hurt. You're... god, you're an angel to me... you treat me better than I deserve"

I felt completely caught by his eyes when he turned his head to glance into my eyes, pure devotion overflowing from them. It was so much more powerful than Tanner's shyer glances to me, and I couldn't help but be enraptured by the way that Connor was unashamedly adoring me. Somehow his adoration was so strong that it was making him just slightly more aware of what he was doing, even losing his lisp in the process.

"You're so innocent, so bright in this world... And the thought of you getting hurt or taken advantage of was..." He couldn't find it in him to finish his sentence, closing his eyes tightly to stop himself from imagining what could have happened to me.

"Connor, um..."

"I know, I know. I'm not your type for a multitude of reasons" Connor seemed to take my unsure tone very strongly, but I honestly was getting the impression that he was the only one seeing himself in a negative light out of the two of us. "I'm fat, my attitude is honestly utter crap, I'm not a good man through and through, I push others away from me-

"Connor, you're scribbling on my hand"

He paused his incessant scribbling instantly, opening his eyes and finally noticing the dark blue ink he had been inscribing onto my hand by accident. Just as soon as he had seen it, he started to apologise profusely to me.

"Oh geez! Christ, I'm sorry, I honestly didn't know I was doing that-

Somewhere in the middle of his apologising he brought the pen straight up, likely to throw it over his shoulder to get it out of the way, but clearly had misjudged the way he was moving it from his dizzy state, jabbing himself directly in his top lip. Gone was the bout of apologising, instead choosing to nurse his injured lip, while I was trying my best to not laugh at how silly he had looked from it all.

"Hey, hey, you're alright!" I couldn't help but giggle, bringing up both of my hands to gently draw away his hands from his injured skin. True enough, his top lip was a shade redder than what it was before, even taking into account the fact he was a lot redder in the face from his heat coming on. "It doesn't even look all that bad. Do you want me to kiss it better?"

It took me a couple of seconds to even realise what I had offered aloud, and it was clear by the confusion in his eyes which then rapidly turned into a stunned gaze that he too had not fully understood what I had said until he had thought about it. Part of me considered retracting it in the silence that ensued, but the majority of my mind begged me to go through with it. I just... wanted him to know that I truly liked him, way more than he saw himself.

"...Yes" He finally decided to answer my offer, sounding breathless when that one word came out of his mouth. I didn't delay, leaning forward slightly to plant a chaste kiss against his top lip, retreating immediately. It was clear from his reddening cheeks and lust filled eyes that it wasn't enough, and it was obvious to him from my teasing smirk and open body language that I was in the same predicament. "...Agh, damn it, I promised myself I wouldn't do this"

His hands came forward and grabbed tight onto my black jumper, practically dragging me forward onto him, causing me to crash onto his lap. The movement nearly caused the both of us to tip the chair he was sitting on, but he managed to disconnect one of his hands from my sweater and stabilise himself against the chair, preventing us both from spilling off it. Once we weren't going to crash, he brought the one hand he was using to balance us back around, digging it fervently into my hair before bringing our lips together in a passionate wrestle.

Almost instantly his beard was roughly scraping against my skin, hurting just enough to feel pleasurable, but not blindingly stinging so that I felt I had to retract from them. Unlike Tanner, who seemed to push me away from him in our contact, Connor's hands were tightly wound around my back and in my hair, as though he felt we could never get close enough. My own hands desired to hold something in them, and they naturally slipped up his shoulders in a sultry motion until they found purchase in his own short hair, my nails soon softly scraping against the skin there. A pleased groan rose from his throat, it purring in a deep baritone into my own throat, gently pulling against my own hair experimentally to see if I enjoyed that as well.

Soon enough, the both of us started to feel light headed from the lack of oxygen, with me having to push quite forcibly against his chest to push us away to get some air. Our lips came apart with a loud  _pop_ , the both of us just staring at each other as we caught our breaths. I could see his chest heave with effort, his eyes straining to keep looking away from my lips, as though he was fighting the urge to dive right back in once he had filled his own lungs.

The time apart seemed to play havoc with his mind, him eventually shaking his head softly as though he was certain that this was a bad idea.

"This wasn't supposed to happen" He sighed to himself, bringing his head forward enough so that it leaned against my chest, listening either to my heartbeat or my lungs fighting to gain the air they needed. It was very intimate for him, especially considering how standoffish he had first come across, but it was becoming more and more clear that it was a facade he put up in front of others. "There's a reason I push others away..."

Sick of hearing himself try to deny something that he truly wanted, I moved my hands back to the back of his head, digging my fingers into as much hair and skin as they could find purchase in, before harshly tugging his face back up so that I could look him in the eyes. I had expected a hiss of pain from him, but instead of that I got a strange strangled whine, as though he had really enjoyed the harsh treatment but wished to hide it from me. Very interesting... I filed it away in my mind for later, and made him look at me before I spoke.

"Connor, for once just stop overthinking things" I gave him the sternest voice I could manage, despite my errant breathing and wandering mind. It seemed to have been enough for him to pay attention to me once more, his eyes locked onto mine as he drank in every word I said. "Just live in the moment for a second, and kiss me"

"...Yes ma'am" Connor eventually agreed to the terms, his tone and flirtatious grin adopting a cheeky tone to it all, flashing a lascivious smile to me before he returned to lavishing my lips.

With his worries about me pulling away or not wanting this flying out the window, his hands gripped my hair and waist with a softer feel to them, enough so that I was finally able to adjust my legs on his lap, shifting them from the side on position they were in until they were in a far more comfortable position, straddling his lap. The shift of my body was enough to earn me a satisfied grunt, animalistically making him purr a moment later when I ground my hips against his, desiring a similar reaction out of him.

The grunts and purring gave me enough room to tease my tongue into his mouth, only to find that his was lying in wait for me, his warm and powerful own quickly overpowering mine. We wrestled for a long while between the both of us, despite the fact it was obvious that I was going to lose somehow, a somewhat startled (And muffled) cry escape from him, it being him this time to push and pull us apart.

"Shoot, we really need to stop it here" Connor protested any further ideas that either of us might have had, clearly worried about where we were going to call it quits. Man, if I thought his lips were red before, this was seriously a step above what they were before.

"But why here?" I whined a little, obviously worked up enough to find the sudden halt more than just a little bit annoying. I was waiting to hear his answer, but a slight shift in my hips was enough to realise that some tenting action was happening to him, at a rapid pace as well. "Oh!"

"Yeah, that" Connor laughed, obviously trying to downplay how badly it was affecting him, despite the fact I could feel it grow even as he spoke. I decided to give him his space then, as he clearly was not willing to quite go  _that_ far just yet, and he gave me an appreciative smile when I carefully climbed off him. He looked incredibly sweaty and worn out compared to before, but surprisingly he seemed to look more aware, his permanent tipsy-drunk look leaving as well. He was feeling a little hot under the collar of course, but nothing like what his fevered state was before. "Ugh, I'm going to need a take a cold shower to just wind down from that"

"You're welcome?" I asked him unsurely, laughing along with him when we both realised how weird it all was. At the very least, he seemed to have enjoyed himself, still evidenced by the fact he felt it necessary to cross one of his legs over his lap to hide the after effects. "I don't know about you, but I enjoyed that very much"

"Yeah, I... I had a good time" He admitted with a sheepish smile, clearly happy about the fact I had enjoyed myself as well. It was honestly very good to see, there honestly weren't that many men I had been with that cared about how I had felt during it, let alone a guy who seemed overjoyed that I had felt elation. "Maybe we could... I don't know, do this again sometime?"

"I'd like that" I confirmed it with him, despite the fact there was no concrete idea in place of when that was, he and I were glad we had agreed on it. I was however, very tired, only confirming it further when I yawned loudly. "Hahh... I really need to get some sleep"

"Well, I won't keep you any longer" Connor decided it was best to shuffle off to the bathroom then, keeping his body at a certain angle to discreetly hide his affliction. I giggled when he _literally_ shuffled his way past me, which he of course couldn't help but giggle with as well, our cheerful attitudes rubbing off on each other. Right as I was about to head to my own bed and fall asleep, he turned his head towards me, a hint of pure love in his tone as he said one last thing. "...I hope you have pleasant dreams Mila"

"You too Connor"


	13. Waiting for a girl like you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy partners, there seems to be some kind of canoodling going on here (I'm running out of ways to say that steamy stuff is happening, someone pleas help me with ideas)

_"When you love someone... when you love someone... It feels so right, so warm and true. I need to know if you feel it too. Maybe I'm wrong, won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong? This heart of mine, has been hurt before. This time I want to be sure"_

* * *

As if by some sort of devious plan by all five of the men in the room, I had headed back over to the beds again, intending to finally get myself some sleep...

"Hey, can't sleep either?"

...One of the three that hadn't woken up yet seemed to have been disturbed by something, stopping me a couple of feet short from the sweet embrace of slumber.

"...Not anymore" I cryptically responded to that person, turning a little to see that it was Gunner this time, him sitting up in the bed and rubbing his head tiredly. I cursed the fact I had been born a light sleeper, and kissed the idea of sleep away for the time being. While I was getting a little tired (In more ways than one) about being disturbed each time, I didn't want to leave the person alone if they desperately needed someone to talk to.

And besides, it wasn't like I disliked the time I had spent with Connor and Tanner.

"I got woken by the shower" Gunner explained, almost as if he could somehow tell what I was going to ask him. True enough, I could hear a soft noise in the background that seemed to be the sound of millions of droplets raining down a room away, occasionally being disturbed by some random shower noise as well. Likely Connor, but I thought against telling Gunner that it was the former in there. "Did it wake you up as well?"

"No, I was already awake" I sighed, allowing myself a little yawn as he stood up and walked towards me.

I half expected him too to be wiling away his time awake in writing his victim impact statement, but he didn't even seem interested in the notepads as I walked over to the dining table, him following close behind me. We sat across from each other at the dining table, him respecting some sort of distance between the both of us, but I honestly found that I wasn't interested in the notepad either.

"...This sounds stupid, but is crying on the witness stand a proper victim statement?" I eventually broke the comfortable silence, willing to do anything than actually talk about my feelings in front of completely random strangers. It had been hard enough to just admit how I had felt about it to Tanner and Paul, so breaking down my emotional barriers in front of an entire jury would no doubt drive me over the edge like it had done to me before, which meant that I was more likely to burst into tears rather than actually speak coherently.

"It is to me" Gunner admitted his opinion to me, shrugging his shoulders about it, gently shuffling his own notepad away from him with a disdainful glance. "I don't know if the jury will really understand, but being so emotional that you can't speak is a very strong indicator as to how you have been affected by it all"

"As long as we can get me some waterproof makeup before then" I giggled, being able to see a dim reflection of myself in the table. I looked like a mess, my entire face being blotched and uncoordinated with its makeup, my lips were still bright red from my run in with Connor, and there was a hickey beginning to form on the inside of my neck from Tanner. "I have never seen myself in such a state"

"Oh, that's right!" Gunner seemed to suddenly remember something, him standing up from the dining table and going to fetch something in a smaller satchel hanging from the edge of his bed. "I managed to grab some things from your apartment before we had to leave, but I didn't really have a good time to give it to you earlier"

He returned quite speedily from his bedside, holding a various number of makeup supplies in his hands. A closer look told me that they weren't just any bits of makeup, they were  _my_ makeup assortments, the various black and dark tones being a dead giveaway. The biggest give away was the red tube of lipstick, with colourful pink writing on the side telling the reader that the lipstick was not just onyx coloured, but also flavoured with grape.

"You managed to get my makeup!" I gleefully confirmed what I had suspected, his grin breaking out on his face in utter relief that he had managed to get the correct things. While I was certainly not going to apply them all at that time during the night, I was certainly looking forward to tasting some of the grape on my lips. "You don't mind if I go apply some of the lipstick right now, do you? Where would the best place be for that?"

After a bit of thinking, both I and him seemed to realise that the bathroom was the most likely thing to have a mirror in it, the both of us glancing over to the closed door. Connor was still in there, so sadly, it seemed like my plan couldn't really happen without waiting for him to be done and dressed first.

"Darn, I really wanted to put it on now" I pouted slightly, holding the red tube in my hands and sighing softly. He plucked the tube gently from my fingertips, and contrary to my idea of him doing so because he was going to put it away, he gently opened it and rolled it up until he could see the black appear out of the top.

"Here, why don't I apply it for you?" He asked me softly, leaning over the table enough so that he would be able to properly see and reach every part of my lips. I honestly was quite happy to let him do so, even if he had no knowledge of actually how to do it at all. Opening my mouth just slightly so that he could apply it correctly was enough of permission that he needed, gently moving forward with the lipstick. "Now here's hoping I don't make you look like a clown"

"Wow, not only can you tap dance, you can help me apply my makeup too? What else can you do?" I couldn't resist the moment to tease him, closing my mouth a number of times just to tell him that quickly before I opened it again to let him properly apply the lipstick to my lips. He chuckled heartily, obviously quite happy to see that I was feeling up to joking with him like I was doing.

"Order your new boyfriend model; codename Gunner! Not only can he fix your makeup and tap dance, but he's also devilishly handsome!" He proudly exclaimed, but luckily not at the volume where he woke the others up. He immediately tutted in disapproval when I began to laugh and giggle, because it made applying the lipstick that much harder. "Hey, come on, stop! It's already harder than it looks!"

"You literally mentioned one of your best features being that you're good looking!" I tittered on, making it a literal nightmare for Gunner, who was worriedly still trying to apply it without smearing it over my cheeks or chin.

"I mean, am I wrong though?" He asked me cheekily, flashing me a roguish smile to further prove his point. Obviously deciding that I was giggling to myself a little too much, he gently placed his fingers under my chin and gently held my lips still with a gentle press of his thumb. The moment his digits touched me, I managed to freeze perfectly back into a manageable position, which left him to fully coat my top lip as well. "Almost done... There we go. How's that feel?"

I slightly puckered and rubbed my lips together; trying to get a feel for how good a job he had done in applying it, relishing the taste of the sweet mixture on them. While it certainly was not as impeccable as what I could manage with my experience, he had gotten it quite well, coating almost every part of the outside of my lips.

"What does it taste like?" Gunner asked me curiously, turning the little tube in his hands to read the lettering once again. It told him that it was still grape, but he still seemed curious as to whether that was truth or just embellishment from the creators. "I know it says grape, but I was wondering if it actually tastes like that"

"Why don't you try some?" I offered it to him, despite the fact my mum would have likely had a panic from the fact I was spreading around my lipstick and lip balm to someone who I did not know for years on end. Then again, Connor and I had gotten a lot closer than that, so I couldn't really claim that I was entirely hygienic from what my mother had taught me when I was really young. "Even if you don't care that much about the taste, I think the onyx would go great with your hair"

"Would it now?" Gunner asked, clearly curious about how I saw his features. With the slim black top he had changed into after the day cycle's incidents, I could quite happily say that anything really worked well on him, but I certainly thought that the onyx on his lips would just make him sexier to me. Noticing my excitement to give him deep black lips, he opened his lips slightly to give me the same room to work with as he did with mine.

Leaning over the table like he had done, I reached with my hand forward until I could softly hold his chin in my smaller grip, covering his lips in the black glossy substance with a more confident hand behind it than he had. Most people in the past would usually stare at my hand as it moved and spread the new colour, but I could spy in my peripheral vision that his eyes were instead locked onto my own, a far more intimate gesture behind the gaze.

I got his lips coated in record time, it being even faster than the time I had hurriedly applied it that one time I was late for school. Gently releasing his chin, I watched as he rubbed his lips together like I had, albeit a lot more cautiously, as he had never really worn this kind of lipstick before. The onyx really suited him, immediately drawing attention from anybody who would look in his direction towards his lips, which were surprisingly well maintained and soft. I wanted to go further, maybe even giving him some dark eye-shadow to draw people to his eyes as well, but decided that I wasn't going to treat him like my personal doll.

"And? How is it?" I asked him, eager to hear if he approved of it. He licked his bottom lip tightly to get an ever better taste of the flavour there, but the movement seemed to be a lot more towards the flirtatious side of things... If my mind wasn't thinking wishfully.

"It's good! Really good, but I feel like I'm not quite getting the full profile of it" Gunner seemed to hint towards something a bit more risqué, leaning himself over the table again, but gently holding my wrist to indicate that he was hoping that I wouldn't pull away. "I'm kind of hoping to get a more... intense taste"

I granted his wish by closing my eyes and leaning in, but he was the one to bridge the gap between us, softly smooching my lips. His lips were even softer than what I had guessed from touching it with the lipstick, them being lovingly maintained with either lip gloss or amazing genes to back him up. I wasn't even sure if he was getting the flavour of the grape like he had said (He might have even said that as an excuse after all) but I certainly was, my entire mouth feeling overwhelmed in the sweet taste.

He pulled away a little sooner than I would have liked, obviously not as eager to keep going until he ran out of breath like Connor had, but nonetheless quite pleased, his triumphant smirk and long lick of his smudged lips proved that.

"Delicious" He left it ambiguous for what he happened to be talking about, but he still hungrily licked his lips like a voracious wolf, still longing to devour more of me. I just giggled, wanting to play a little coy with him.

"You messed up my lipstick!" I protested in a joking manner, already managing to see in the slightly reflective surface of the table that the black had gotten all around my lips rather than on them. He just shrugged his shoulders, an impish grin on his face that seemed to say that he was quite proud of his handiwork. I pouted slightly, putting my hands on my hips to give him somewhat of a stern look, which he just wolfishly smirked at in response. "Now how are you going to repay me for that?"

"Luckily for you, applying lipstick is not the only thing I can do" Gunner quite proudly started to tick off the things he had in his repertoire, neatly tapping a finger for each one that he had. "I've been told I'm a good cook by others, I am amazing at helping someone straighten their hair, I do a marvellous striptease, I'm good at making puns to cheer others up-

"Wait wait, what was that last one?" I cut him off at about the fourth one, trying my best not to devolve into a chuckling fit at one of the things he had mentioned before.

"I'm good at making puns?"

"No, the one before that"

"I do a marvellous striptease"

"Oh, my god" I couldn't help it, having to sit down before my laughter caused me to get weak in the knees again. He just sat there with a completely serious look in his eyes, but the grin was unmissable. He was one hundred percent serious, which just made it all that much funnier to me. "You're certainly not shy, are you?"

"...Forgive me for bringing the mood down for a moment, but I might end up getting convicted of a murder I didn't do in a week's time" Gunner was a bit more serious this time, a somewhat softer smile on his face. "To me, being afraid of taking risks is not worth it... And besides, you're a risk I'm willing to take"

The mood had significantly dropped between us for the time being, it being a stark reminder of what we would both have to face a lot sooner than we would have liked. While the case against me and Connor was quite a bit thinner than the other two, there was the risk that some Alpha were going to be called onto the jury, who would no doubt see it from the point of view of the family rather than us. The saddest thing was that there honestly wasn't much we could do to help the case, the four of us being forced to leave it entirely up to Matthias to get everything needed to prove our innocence. In a way, it left us lurching in limbo, entirely allowing us to go with the flow until the court date...

...And if there was something I could do to help ease his mind, then I'd take that risk with him.

"If you're still up for it, then I'd be more than happy to be your audience" I decided to risk several things as I said that, earning me a confident nod from his, his happier demeanour returning quite readily. He stood up and began running his hand through his hair slowly, even somewhat sensually, before gesturing down to the other side of the table where he was.

"I'm assuming you'll want a good view" He teasingly invited me to sit before him, which I happily obliged with. Once I was sat there did he really seem to prepare himself, taking a deep breath in and flashing me a confident grin. "You'll have to forgive me if I occasionally look a bit odd; I've never actually performed one of these for someone I actually wanted to impress"

I had numerous questions come up in my mind from that last remark, but decided that I ultimately didn't need the answer to any of them, instead settling myself for the show.

He began with slow movements of his hands, beginning at the top of his head and gliding down his face until they rested for a brief pause at his neck, making a sensual movement in the moment it had stopped there. Quite satisfied with my low whistle at that movement, he trailed his hands down further, sliding down his abs until they came to a rest at his belt. He wasn't in a hurry however, as instead of actually doing anything with his belt, he neatly untucked the black shirt he had been given. Now with the loose ends there, he gently began to roll and shimmy the fabric up in a tantalizingly slow movement, exposing just the bottom of his abs. The small glance I had gotten back at the crime scene didn't lie, him having quite an impressive physique, his abs beginning to show through his skin impressively.

Unfortunately, that's where our small little adventure ended, us being interrupted by the bathroom door opening. Gunner managed to slip his shirt back down and smooth out the wrinkles before Connor even noticed something was up, it seeming like the both of us had been doing nothing more than innocently talking.

"Oh hey, I didn't know you guys were up" Connor seemed to eventually recognise the both of us in the dark, coming a little closer to see us properly without having to squint. "Sorry, did I wake either of you up?"

"You did wake me up, but not Mila. She said she was already awake"

Connor innocently feigned a surprised look, acting as if he didn't know that already. The two men squared off with each other for a moment, clearly a little suspicious of the sudden tense air between them.

"What the heck is on your mouth man?" Connor asked Gunner, gesturing around his mouth, where my black lipstick was still smeared heavily. He had yet to look at my face, but something told me he was already beginning to have ideas on why the substance was so messed up.

"Mila was feeling a bit down because she couldn't get her makeup from home before she came here. I showed her that we did have it, and after she had applied it herself, I asked her if I could put it on myself. This is what came of it" Gunner smoothly lied, pointing around his own mouth as though he had just been sloppy in applying it. Connor seemed unconvinced, but Gunner came back with his own retort before the blacksmith could really notice my own messy lips. "What about you? Why are your lips so red?"

"...I banged a pen into it" Connor fumbled his lie a bit, clearly not having as solid of a defence as Gunner did, but it was enough to divert attention away from what it actually was.

"Both of them?"

"Heats make you very disoriented man"

The two of them stood there for a bit, still unsure if they were supposed to keep pointing out flaws in each other’s stories, but eventually Connor decided he was too tired to really deal with it right then. He wished us both a good night, shuffling back off to bed.

Gunner turned to me with a soft smile in his features, him leaning down for a moment to whisper something to me.

"I'm more than willing to take more risks sometime" He assured me, causing me to giggle softly both from the warm air on my ear and because of the things he wasn't afraid to tell me. "Just let me know when you do as well"

"You'll be the first to know" I whispered back to him, finally making his flirtatious smile meld into a more heartfelt one, one that was overjoyed to see that I still wanted him. I jokingly gave his shoulder a punch, causing him to let out a quiet 'ow', before I smiled tiredly at him. "Now go to bed, you big lug"


	14. One more night

_"I've been trying for so long, to let you know. Let you know how I feel. If I stumble, if I fall, just help me back. So I can make you see... Please give me one more night, give me just one more night..."_

* * *

It was the sound of clattering pans that was the subsequent thing that had woken me up, along with someone quietly fretting over the fact they had banged said pan. I sat up in bed to see if the noise had awoken anyone else in the nearby beds, but it seemed to be that I was the only one, as Paul, Tanner, Gunner and Connor were still sleeping soundly.

Which could only mean that Bobby was the one fiddling around in the dark. I peered towards the kitchenette as my eyes adjusted to the dark again, and I could see him trying to fix some precariously placed bowls that he had dug out. He didn't spy me looking at him, his head completely locked onto whatever he had set out to do, so much so that he didn't see me until I was standing directly on the other side of the divider to the kitchenette.

"OH! Jesus Mila, you gave me a fright!" Bobby jumped when he finally saw me there, a hand on his chest as he settled his heart from my sudden appearance.

"You gave me a fright too, banging whatever you had" I explained to him, pointing over to the bowls that he had fixed. He let out a sheepish chuckle, giving me an apologetic look to show that he hadn't intended to wake me. "What are you even doing at the seventh hour of the night cycle?"

I could hear a soft droning noise in the background as I had asked him that, which peaked my curiosity enough to walk into the kitchenette and investigate for myself before he had even answered me. There was a very soft orange glow coming from the oven, and I could see a tray perched in the wire racks on the inside that held some white little fluffy creations. Only a moment after I had discovered that, did I smell a sweet scent floating around in the kitchen, with most of it smelling like it was coming from the oven while the rest came from the bowls Bobby had been using.

"...Are you baking?" I came to the realisation, as all of the things seemed to make sense. He nodded his head as he picked up one of the metal bowls he had been using before, showing me some kind of fluffy white mixture inside that he had been making. "That's a little surprising. Most people just use instant food makers nowadays"

"My mother instilled a bit of an old fashioned look towards food in me" Bobby explained with a tender smile, dipping a small metal spoon into the mixture and holding it up to my lips for me to taste. I willingly opened my mouth, feeling quite happy as he proceeded to feed me it, and my elation only grew when I tasted how delicious the mixture was. "She used to think that the instant food makers had no soul, so she always made food from hand. Growing up with her cooking, I have to say that I agree with her"

"My dad was the same, if having a little bit of a different view on it" I gladly enjoyed talking about my parents to him, shifting myself a little bit closer to him to peer into the oven, brushing shoulders with him for a moment. I could feel how warm his skin was to the touch via my shoulder, so part of me was wondering if he just happened to have a full body blush going on or if he too was slipping into his heat. "Because my mother died of an illness when I was very young, he wanted me to have some kind of warmth and love in my food, so he and I always would cook when he was back from being stationed at a base for the military. He also thought it would be good for me to know how to cook, just in case something ever happened to instant food makers that meant I couldn't use them"

"Hah, my cousin probably would be screwed if something happened to them" He laughed, his low voice rumbling quite pleasantly in his throat, which I had to admit, was always nice to hear from him. I only guessed that the particular cousin he was talking about had to be Jfred, as I somehow had the impression that Matthias and Bryan had more of a head on their shoulders than he did. "He still doesn't know how to cook"

"He'd probably just ask Matthias to cook for him if something happened" I giggled aloud, and he chuckled along with me, so I had guessed correctly about which cousin it turned out to be. Bobby absentmindedly stuck a spoonful of the mixture in his mouth, but he didn't seem to catch that he had smeared some of it on his top lip as well. "What did you make?"

"Meringues" He answered, pointing his spoon at the white fluffy creations in the oven. I noticed a slight spill at the side of the tray that he must have made, but it luckily seemed to not have dropped off the side and burned just yet. "I kind of was in the mood for them, what with..."

"...With what?" I asked him, turning my head to catch him sticking another spoonful of the meringue mixture in his mouth, almost as if he had suddenly realised he had said something that he hadn't meant to and was trying to use the spoon as an excuse for why he couldn't answer my question. "Bobby, why were you in the mood for them?"

"...You know, cause you kind of smell like them" My persistence seemed to pay off, him softly answering my question. He seemed to become a little bashful under my gaze, and he offered me another spoonful of the mixture like he was trying to now make sure that  _I_ couldn't ask him another question. I decided to take another mouthful of it, as I liked the taste anyway. "I don't know, I think you smell a bit like meringues"

"Oh yeah, Connor and Tanner both mentioned that I smell like marshmallows" I realised, my remark completely flying over his head as to why I knew that either of them had made that remark.

"Well, they're wrong" Bobby almost stubbornly stuck to his idea, pouting heavily as he fed himself another spoon of meringue, again smearing some of the mixture over his top lip. "You smell like meringue, they just probably don't know the difference"

"Sounds more like you've been smelling me more intensely then them" I only realised the implications of what I had said after they had come out of my mouth. I wasn't the only one, as Bobby had frozen in his next spoonful halfway to his mouth, his face almost screaming that he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I decided to switch tactics, possibly to either give him an out if he was uncomfortable, or to make him realise that I was inviting him in. "You've got something there, mind if I get it?"

I moved slow enough so that he could have pulled his head away if he didn't like me touching him, but fast enough so that I was able to run my thumb over his top lip. He remained completely still as I did that, either completely taken by surprise or because he didn't mind it at all. Once I was satisfied I had gotten everything off his lip, I then stuck my thumb in my mouth, mixture and all, and slowly licked it off. His eyes followed everything intently, and I could even spy him swallow a little thickly as I brought it back out with a slow sensual lick of my lips.

"Tasty" I took a page out of Gunner's book with that one, leaving it quite open as to what I was referring to. He had still not moved the spoon further to his lips in the meantime, so I took the opportunity given to me, and gently grasped his hand to bring the spoon to my lips. "You don't mind if I have this, do you?"

"Uh..." He said somewhat absentmindedly, clearly distracted with what I was doing instead. Watching me with clear interest, he took note of how I placed the spoon in my mouth again, but I purposely smudged the mixture over my own top lip. "You, um... You need help getting that?"

"Please" I poured in as much sensual emotions into that single word, and it worked like a charm.

Abandoning the bowl and spoon on the bench nearby, Bobby moved forward until he could grasp my cheeks in his hands, and kissed me eagerly, intent on cleaning up the "mess" I had made. While initially starting a little shy, he soon grew in confidence, as soon I felt his tongue licking over my lips in a hungry manner, and it was deliciously rough against my already bruised lips. It didn't take him long to clean me up, pulling away and licking his own lips to get the last remnants of it off his own. Just as he was about to say something, I quickly grabbed the spoon dangling over the side of the forgotten bowl and put another splodge in the same spot.

"Hey now, don't tempt me" He chuckled in his deep baritone, which honestly just made me want to seduce him further.

"And if that is my intention?" I teased him, flashing him a sultry wink. He responded in quite pleased manner, purring deeply as he pressed his chest to mine, holding my wrists securely so that I couldn't run away.

"Then I'd say you need a punishment, you naughty girl" His purring was slowly devolving into an animalistic growl, his deep tone and proximity almost vibrating through me. The idea of being punished by him seemed to sit well with me, a little more than I would have initially expected, and I voluntarily surrendered myself to him.

He released my hands, instead choosing to bring them down and around my hips, hoisting me up and placing my rear down on the countertop of the kitchenette. My rear banged into the bowl that we had forgotten, but we paid it no mind, focusing entirely on each other. One of his hands snaked around to support my back and keep me close to him, while the other linked into my right hand, possibly just to make sure I wasn't going to be naughty any further but I honestly was just captivated by how romantic the action had seemed at the time. He returned quite happily to his task of cleaning me up, humming an approving note as I began to kiss him back in the movement, letting my legs cross behind his back to make us even closer. I couldn't even tell after a while if there even was any mixture left on my lips, his tongue still running over them like I was just as mouth-watering as the soft fluffy meringues he had been making.

After being satisfied for the time being, he drew back and pressed his head softly into chest, taking a moment to just relax with me there. Right as I began to softly thread my fingers through his fingers like Paul had done with me, did I smell something a little off in the air.

"...Is something burning?" I asked him, causing him to bring his head away from my chest for a moment, sniffing the air softly. As much as he likely smelt me as well, he seemed to smell it too, looking confused around us for the trace of it.

I released his hair and back at the same time as he let go of my back and hand, and I clambered down to help him with looking. We were thinking along the same lines as each other, checking the oven first, and it was there that we saw that something was wrong. The spill I had seen earlier had decided to fall off the side of the tray, proceeding to burn on the hot underside of the oven.

"Ah, we need to do something about that" Bobby sighed, opening the door to likely scrape the burning pieces off the floor with a spatula. Unfortunately, opening the door meant we had a whole wave of smoke come out...

Which set off the fire alarm in the kitchenette.

Bobby scrambled to get the oven under control while I started to wave a tea towel nearby frantically back and forth beneath the fire alarm to make it stop screeching at us. We both got taken by surprise (But in a way, not really, as it did make sense with how loud we were making things) by the other four sleeping individuals appearing at the other side of the divider, each one of them looking about as tired as I felt by then.

"Jesus you guys, what are you even doing?" Tanner mumbled tiredly, rubbing his face as he tried to comprehend what on Alfu we were up to.

"Sorry! Baking stuff, it caught fire in the oven" I quickly rambled the reason to them, still frantically trying to jump up and down beneath the fire alarm to turn it off by blowing the smoke away. If we didn't get it off very soon, then there was the chance that we were going to wake up the entire company, and something told me that they weren't going to be as forgiving as the guys I had been locked in with. After all, at least four out of the five in here with me had woken  _me_ up in the meantime.

"Here, I got it" Connor came to my rescue specifically, picking up one of the notebooks from the dining table and using that instead to blow away the smoke. With its far sturdier pages than my fluttering tea towel, the smoke vanished much faster, and it finally stop beeping at us all. Gunner was assisting Bobby by the oven, helping scrape up the last remnants of the spill and then spraying some water in its place to clean it.

"...Good lord, do you ever get some sleep?" Paul asked us all aloud, Bobby seeming a little sheepish from the attention, when it suddenly occurred to me that Paul was specifically referring to just me. His eyes weren't looking at the others, just me, which would seem to suggest that he knew that I had been the only one to not actually get all that much sleep that night.

"I've... Actually been having some difficulty with getting to sleep tonight" I left the reasoning vague as to  _why_ I had been not sleeping, but it likely would have been easily discovered when the four other boys suddenly seemed to find something else interesting, looking at differing points on the walls, roof and floor. None of those four seemed to notice that something was up with the others... but Paul did, looking at each man with narrowed eyes for a moment, likely piecing together some things.

"...I see" He said softly, managing to hide his suspicion just enough in his voice so that the others didn't hear it. He uncrossed his arms to make sure none of the others caught onto his sudden change in attitude, and moved beside me with a bend in his elbow as though to offer me his arm. "Come with me for a moment, maybe some cold night air will do you some good"

I smiled to him and gently placed my hands around his elbow, letting him lead me towards the door and away from the four for a moment. Managing to cast a glance back at them as Paul worked to open the door, I saw that each of them looked a little bit more sombre with the fact I was leaving with Paul. It likely was going to be a thing that I would have to mention to them, that I was interested in more than just one of them, but I supposed that would have to wait for now.

And so I let Paul lead me out of the steel doors, letting the cool air wash over my face.


	15. Just the way you are

_"Don't go changing, to try and please me. You've never let me down before. Don't imagine, you're too familiar... and I don't see you anymore. I would not leave you, in times of trouble... We never could have come this far. I took the good times; I'll take the bad times. I'll take you just the way you are"_

* * *

Paul and I weren't in a particular hurry, the both of us walking at a leisurely pace through the company building. Nobody else seemed to be awake, so it truly felt for a moment like it was just me and him there. Wherever we were headed, Paul made sure to gently direct me with his elbow and his other hand, the way we were linked being very gentle and tender even when we went around sharp corners. Strangers might have even assumed that we were a married couple, blissfully going for a midnight walk together.

When I glanced at him, I could see the dark circles under his eyes, which gave away just how little sleep he had gotten so far. He likely had gotten as little sleep as I had, which meant that he had somehow woken up each time that I had...

Which meant that he had heard everything going on between me and the others.

"Where are we headed?" I asked him out of curiosity, which finally got him to look at me. Despite the usual attitude of men being that they were mad when a woman pursued multiple people, there wasn't truly any anger there. Maybe a bit hesitant, but not mad.

"There's a hatch that leads to the roof somewhere in the middle of our building" He responded softly, his spare hand coming around to gently pat one of mine that was holding onto the crook of his elbow, as though he had wanted to reassure me in some manner. He must have seen the anxiety in my eyes, and wanted to assure me that he wasn't feeling any ill will towards me. "I was hoping to see some stars with you"

"...That sounds very romantic" I admitted to him, which earned me a soft smile from him in return.

"I'd like to think so" He chuckled softly to himself, gently bringing me to a halt outside of a particular door that was labelled as 'outgoing feed'. It seemed to be the one that he had been aiming for, as he then let go of my other hand with his right and turned the knob on the door. "Here we are"

The inside of the room seemed to be mainly set up with lots of computer parts, various large hard drives and several big shelves set up with what looked to be routers and databases. In the middle of it all however was a ladder, that led up to a metal hatch in the ceiling, almost reminding me once again of a submarine hatch.

"We can get to the roof from here, the hatch isn't all that hard to open" He gestured to the hatch, gently releasing his elbow to let me have my own autonomy again. He seemed to gesture for me to go first, which I decided to accept. "Ladies first. I can stay down here until you're safely on the roof, in case you slip-OH! Um... Wait, maybe I should go first?"

I paused in my trek up the ladder, looking down at him in confusion about why he suddenly changed ideas on who was supposed to go first, when it occurred to me that I was still wearing nothing much beyond a nightgown and a sweater, which meant that people could technically look up and see my underwear if they happened to be beneath me. Paul seemed to only have realised this after I started to climb, his head turned politely away, but there was a slight hint of red creeping up on his cheeks.

Giggling a little as I came back down, we then swapped on who was going first, with Paul's far more clothed rear being the only thing I could see above me a moment later. With an impressive show of his arm muscles, he wrenched open the hatch on the roof and clambered up fully, before he turned back to give me a hand up once I was close enough.

The view of the stars from the company roof was awe inspiring, reminding me of the nights I would spend with my father on our old house's roof. Paul closed the hatch again, if just to ensure that neither of us could fall down it if we weren't careful, and came to join me by standing right beside me, his hand loosely covering my own.

"Pretty, isn't it?" He asked me, to which I just nodded, completely enraptured by it all. The company was in a lucky spot, with no large buildings surrounding us to cover up the night sky, which was just absolutely beautiful to take in. Just twinkling stars and gorgeous constellations as far as the eye could see. "I often like to come up here when I'm feeling down, just to clear my head. Oh hey! There's a meteor shower!"

Just as he said, another one of Alfu's common things was how often we had our meteor showers. But it never really stopped being something that took your breath away, a million lights streaking across the sky with their long vibrant trails. We spent a long while just taking them all in, but I had to admit that my mind started to wander a little bit.

"...How many times did you get woken up?" I eventually managed to find my courage to ask him that question, quite certain without having to tell him what I meant with that question. He did understand, as his hand then seemed to link into mine, perhaps to find the same courage that I had needed to answer it.

"About four times" He confirmed what I had already expected, that he had somehow been woken up each time I had been. But even further than just answering the question, he seemed to add in little bits of information, giving me the specific things that had managed to wake him up each time. "Tanner woke me up while he was playing the video game with you, Connor woke me up when he started to ramble and apologise to you, Gunner woke me up when he was joking about all of his good qualities, and Bobby woke me up at the moment when he had banged that bowl, which I think was also the thing that woke you up. It probably couldn't have been helped all that much though, as I'm a light sleeper as is"

"And are you mad?"

"Mad? No, I'm not angry or anything at those things happening" Paul sighed, running a hand through his own hair when he thought about why he particularly even found it necessary to point them out. "I guess I am a bit disappointed though, because I had really hoped that those guys were going to aim for someone else. It's kind of bad luck, you know? That all five of us had picked the same woman"

"You guys don't think that things are maybe moving a bit fast? I'm not shaming or anything, I was very forward with them after all, but I would have thought that most people would have waited a bit longer before making a move" I almost felt it was necessary to ask that to him, as some sort of confirmation for why they were so willing to all throw their hat into the ring for my affection. His hand tightened just a bit around my fingers, but it wasn't in anger or frustration like I was worried it was going to be. It was... like he was afraid of letting go.

"...You mentioned that you had heard people talking about something that is going to happen in eighteen years, right?" He suddenly seemed to veer off from the discussion we were having, with him casting a slow glance around us, as if to double check that nobody was going to hear what he was going to say beyond me. It was just like the time he had told me the true name of the company, spilling secrets to me that he had no doubt been sworn into secrecy with. Maybe this discussion actually had everything to do with our earlier one. "Well, in eighteen years... We, everyone in a higher position in the company I mean, are likely going to... Die"

"Die?!" I asked him in a startled manner, but his hand tightened again over mine, asking-No,  _begging_ me to calm down and let him finish explaining.

"It's not a hundred percent, but the chances of us dying are higher than they are for us surviving. As to what is going to do the killing... I just can't tell you" He let the news out, almost seeming like he had somehow lifted a weight of his shoulders now that he truly had decided to tell me. Now it was me who was holding tightly onto him, afraid that I was going to lose him somehow. "Eighteen years is a long time, but the moment you add the fact that it will be the last remaining years of your life... Then it suddenly doesn't seem so long anymore"

He finally found his courage to look at me, but the despondency in every part of his face made me almost afraid to keep his gaze, worried that I would somehow be unable to keep my cool. But I held his gaze, knowing that he was telling me something vastly important, something which I felt deserved my utmost dedication and attention.

"I'm sure you've noticed the way the others act around you, how it's not normal. How Tanner and Bobby are so careful around you, how Connor kept pushing you away and why Gunner is so eager to take risks despite seeming in perfect health" He admitted, looking away for only a moment, checking that nobody was coming up to the roof via the hatch. Nobody was, the hatch was still just as closed as it had been before. "They're all afraid of getting attached to you, or in Gunner's case, to completely pass you by without ever letting you know the truth. No matter how much we get attached to someone... We're going to have to leave them behind when that day comes"

"...Then what about you?" I needed to know from him, spotting quite easily that he had left himself off that list of people, like he was trying to hide the last remnants of his emotions from me. "Why are you letting yourself get so attached if you're afraid?"

That question almost seemed too much for him to answer, finally a sign that he was letting himself feel his emotions without burying them into the depths of his soul. I reached out my other hand to hold his other empty one, holding them tight as he seemed to be unable to hide his tears anymore, a couple of them slipping from his eyes and trailing down his cheeks.

"...I wanted a reason to come home" Paul told me the truth, fighting to say them through his tears without losing his courage anymore. "I still do. I need something that will make me fight my hardest, to make me still want to survive even when all my friends might be gone, just to come home someday and know that someone will be there for me"

I wanted to be there for him right then and there, not just in eighteen years’ time. Letting go of his hands for a brief moment, I moved them until I could hold his damp cheeks, gazing into his eyes with as much adoration as he had shown me. Without needing to ask him, I stood on tiptoe to be able to reach his lips with my own, and he wrapped his arms tight around my chest as we came together. There was no sense of lust there, just pure intimacy, the closest feeling to love that I had ever felt. I knew that I was just as interested in the other four romantically as I was with Paul, but his touch was pure affection and devotion, with no hint of heat or our class types urging us to love one another. When we came apart, I gently pressed my forehead to his, using my thumbs to gently wipe away his tears.

"I'll be your reason to come home" I promised him, cementing the truth by how heartfelt I had been. It didn't matter what this thing was going to be in eighteen years’ time, nor if things were to develop with the others to a stronger point than I had with Paul. Even if things didn't turn out with me and Paul, or if I decided that I loved another more than him, I was still always going to remain a reason for him to come home, and he felt that.

I moved my hands to be able to fully wrap him in a hug like he was doing to me, letting the two of us hold each other close. Paul didn't have any words further to respond back to my promise, but I could feel in his touch that he was endlessly grateful for it. With those many things combined, the meteor shower still going on around us, the gentle warmth of his body, the loving way he held me... Did I feel at peace, letting myself drift off into a blissful sleep.

* * *

"There you two are!" I could hear someone sounding like Tanner whisper worriedly somewhere in the background, but I tried to ignore it as I crawled more into what felt like Paul's chest and shoulder, the bony feel of him somehow feeling more comfortable than anything else at the time. "We were so worried since you didn't come back soon"

"Yeah, no kidding" Another person added their opinion, but the deep baritone of their voice began to make me wake up slightly and register what was going on around me. "You guys were gone a long time"

"Where did you even go?" There was one more person, this one distinctly sounding like Connor. By now, my brain was already half awake, my body reacting in the usual manner, since I was still a light sleeper.

"Shh!" The person carrying me hushed them all, but it was far too late. If anything, their attempt at making everyone else quiet down had made their entire chest vibrate, which was the final thing to make me rouse from slumber.

"Hm?" I tiredly mumbled, opening my eyes only to realise it still was very dark wherever we were. A little bit of staring made me realise that we were back in the isolation room, with all four other men standing around Paul, who had carried me back in his arms just like he had carried me back in front of my apartment. Only when I blinked at them did they realise that I had woken up again, with people looking very apologetic for doing so. "Mmm, tired"

I tried to roll back into Paul's chest and shoulder, effectively trying to go back to sleep there. A number of the other boys laughed at my tired demeanour, before Paul hushed them again. Soon after that, I felt Paul start to move in a particular direction, before he dropped me down onto a soft, if cold bed for me to sleep in. I grumbled from the lack of warmth, but he gently began to pet my hair again to reassure me that everything was fine.

"So, we need to talk about this" Paul spoke up, and I managed to see out of the small crack in my eyes that he was swinging his finger in a circle to talk about the five of them, as the other four had followed him to the bed. The bed I was in gently dipped down as he sat on the very edge of it, but I wasn't bothered because he still was doting on me.

"...What are you referring to? The five of us-

"Don't try to lie to me, I literally woke up each time you guys were up to something" Paul cut off Connor's attempt to deny that something was going on between the five of them and me, his firm tone made it obvious that he wasn't going to just ignore it because the others seemed uncomfortable with it. Again, I could spy something out of the crack in my eyes, which was the abashed looks appearing on the majority of their faces. "We all know that we like her, so that's why I feel like we should lay down some ground rules so that things don't go to hell in a hand basket. Rule one, our company takes precedence"

"Gotcha" Bobby agreed with the idea, the other nodding their heads in agreement to the first rule Paul had come up with. It was a bit odd, if some stranger came along and had to guess which one of the five was the one in charge, I would bet that nine out of ten would have guessed Paul and not Tanner. Perhaps it was best to not mention this to Tanner however, he already felt bad about his leadership skills.

"Rule two, we don't wreck our friendships with each other over this"

"Totally"

"And rule three... I guess that one should just simply be that we don't get mad at Mila over this"

"That one’s a no brainer man"

"I know, I know" Paul sighed, pausing for a moment to look down at me as I looked back up at him. "But as long as we follow those, then I think we'll be alright"

They decided to leave it at that, Paul moving forward to gently press a kiss to my forehead, which I tiredly giggled at. With everything feeling like it had been talked about and sorted, I held tight to the final words that Paul had said. We were going to be alright.


	16. Drag me down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not actually an expert in law or how court cases work, I'm just basing this off the things I have heard from others and what I consider to be logical (Also crime shows, but everyone knows those aren't a hundred percent trustworthy in terms of realism, so I didn't list that)

The following couple of days were a bit touch and go once Matthias was back at the company. As pointed out to me by Bobby before I could be taken by surprise, Matthias apparently had a very big policy against members of the company being in relationships with each other, which did mean that we all had to keep things under a hushed manner. Once we had that sorted out, it became quite simple to hide things from him, despite his occasional joke about us flirting with one another.

On the second day did Matthias feel that he had enough evidence to fully counter the case that the prosecution had, and it was finally on the third day that we had received the court order that we were supposed to show up the next day for our trial. Shoving some suppressants down the guys throats to keep their heats at bay and dressing everyone in formal clothing to give the best first impression that we could, we went off on the day with everyone piled into the back of the truck to transport everyone.

It was only once we were directly outside the courtroom doors that we got instructions from Matthias, him also being dressed up to the nines in a sleek dark blue business suit. Gunner, Connor and Bobby were dressed in black (As was I), in order to give the impression that we were paying homage to the deceased (Despite us not liking him in the slightest) and everyone else was dressed in grey or neutral colours to differentiate themselves from us. I even had been recommended to not wear any makeup beyond my lipstick, as it would give the impression that I wasn't taking things seriously.

"I'm going to be heading in last, so sadly that means you guys will have to walk the gauntlet first" Matthias sighed, pushing open the court doors to peer in to see how full it was. I managed to sneak a peek along with him, noticing that there was a good amount of people all sitting on the side in favour of the deceased. "But don't worry, we'll have two people escorting each of you down to your seats"

"Won't the escorts just make them think we're actually more suspicious than we are?" Bobby asked, his hand nervously running through his short black locks. Like me, he had been told to leave some things behind in order to seem more professional, which meant he wasn't wearing his usual backwards baseball cap. Now that I thought about it, Jfred had also left his behind.

"Sadly there have been cases that people have assaulted the defendants when they are walking down to their seats" Blaire sighed softly, her own grey suit looking very professional and powerful. I was beginning to wonder if I should have worn a suit too instead of a neat black dress, but it seemed like I couldn't change my mind right there.

"Let's go, whoever's going first better go now" Matthias hurried us a bit, wanting us to not lose our nerve so close to the time we needed to be in the court room. After all, if we didn't actually show up, the judge had every right to consider it a shut and closed case in support of the prosecution.

"I'll see you guys in there" Connor took the massive leap of being the first one to go in, both Kevin and Marvin squeezing in a little on either side of him to escort him down. With his head held high, as though he knew it was going to be an easy win for us, the three of them walked down between the rows of chairs.

None of the people on the prosecutions side did anything beyond glaring at Connor, them all likely being too intimidated by the large broad shouldered brothers flanking him on either side. That, and Connor looked built enough that he likely would have properly done some damage against one of them in case they did try something. He arrived to the seat to the far left of our defendant table, where Marvin quickly gave him a pat on the back as support before they slipped away from him and settled themselves into the seats supporting the defendants.

Bobby was the next to take the plunge, likely being the safest out of us because Jfred and Bryan were the ones to support him this time. However, one of the people on the prosecution side seemed to have been emboldened by something, as they shouted something at him.

"Hey, which one of you bastards was the one that shot my cousin?! Answer me, you motherfuckers!"

Bobby inadvertently flinched at both the language used and the accusation, but it luckily didn't pay a huge role as Jfred and Bryan both ushered their cousin onward, just as Bryan gave the person who had yelled that a hateful glare. One of the two security officers that had been stationed in the court gave that person a warning that if they were to attempt that again, that there would be problems.

"You ready?" Paul checked with me now that it seemed like I was the next to go, gently touching my shoulder to reassure me that he and Tanner were the ones to escort me down to my seat. Despite the both of them being nowhere near as impressive as Bryan and Jfred in their strength, I did feel safer with the both of them at my side. I nodded my head, being as ready as I honestly could be. "Alright, let's go"

With a firm hand in the small of my back, Paul ushered me forward through the open doors while he and Tanner surrounded me on either side. I tried my best to ignore the livid aura that seemed to come from my right side, but I eventually failed and did spare a glance that way. My eyes landed on an older woman on that side of the court, and she seemed to become absolutely livid the moment I dared to look at her.

"You! You're the little harlot that got my son killed!" The woman roared at me, and I just hunkered down into a small form as she began to advance on me, her hands raised in an angry gesture like she was considering assaulting me on the spot. Tanner, who had strategically been assigned to my right side for his larger stature and presence, calmly stepped between us and held out an arm to stop the oncoming hysterical lady, who seemed insulted that he had stood in her way.

"Ma'am, please don't assault the victim" Tanner seemed to pick his words carefully, but not for calming her down. No, in fact he had seemingly chosen that word to make her escalate a bit further, and it worked like a charm.

"Victim?! VICTIM?! THAT LITTLE WHORE-

She didn't get to say much more, the security sensing that she was going to be a further problem and intercepting her before anything else went worse. Eventually she was dragged from the court room, her kicking and screaming profanity the entire while. The remaining fifteen people in the prosecution side suddenly seemed less interested in actually fighting the rest of us, worried that they would be kicked out in a similar fashion to her, and they all sat with their heads firmly locked onto the front of the courtroom.

Tanner of course gave me an apologetic look, as that choice had sort of involved putting me a little bit in danger, but I could see the benefit of his choice the moment I looked over to the members of the jury. The sixteen people sitting there with an impassive face now were no longer looking at things with an unbiased mind, not after they had just seen one of the family of the deceased harassing me and Tanner, and was forced to leave, giving the impression that the family were stark raving mad against anyone that so much as disagreed with them. It simply painted a much more accurate picture of how I was being treated so far, and would lend their minds more to our side when we explained that I had been persecuted all that time by the bar owner.

Finally arriving at the table where we were supposed to sit, Paul and Tanner were finally forced to leave me there, as they couldn't really hang around the table as the trial went on. Bobby and Connor seemed to take on that role, Bobby even gently pulling me along until he and I swapped seats, which left me firmly between the both of them instead. Gunner only had to walk down to us with Blaire and Matthias ushering him, before all five of us were finally there.

The judge arrived right on time, and seemed all ready to begin with all his official papers in front of him, before he began to speak to us all.

"We are here today to discuss the case of unlawful murder or to be more specific, first degree murder and accessory to murder" The judge announced this to the lot of us, and I could immediately see Matthias look a little surprised with the pronouncement. First degree murder was that much harder to prove than second degree after all, as first degree came from people planning it a long time beforehand, not spontaneous killing. In other words, it was far from what we had done, which was a point in our favour. "Can the defendants Gunner Gomez and Bobby Frederick please announce themselves?"

"Present, your honour" Gunner spoke for the both of them, him and Bobby standing up on our side to show that it was them. The judge took a moment to peer down at the identification to tell which one of them was which, before he nodded his head to show that he was satisfied.

"The both of you are here under the charges of first degree murder, correct?"

"It would appear so" Gunner chose his words carefully, feigning an understandable ignorance as to why he and Bobby were brought in on such harsh charges. The judge hummed a little, but didn't change his facial expression to show whether he disliked or liked Gunner doing so.

"And how do the both of you plead to that charge?"

"Not guilty, your honour" Bobby answered this time, and the reaction from the prosecution family was instantaneous, a loud murmur and arguing beginning to rise from the fifteen remaining people in their seats. Even the prosecution lawyer was doing nothing to stop them, instead choosing to stare at us with a creepy leer, as though he had somehow already won the court case by that.

"I will have you all removed if you continue to be so disruptive" The judge commanded with an iron will, harshly slamming his gavel down to silence them all. They all begrudgingly settled down, and he moved right on to the next subject. "Connor Melville and Mila Tanthree?"

"Present, your honour" Connor spoke for me and him, and we both stood up while our other two friends proceeded to sit back down. The judge didn't have to take nearly as long with us, largely because it was obvious which one of us was the female and who wasn't.

"The both of you are here under the charges of accessory to first degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon" The judge stated, before looking a little bit confused down at the report he had been given. "Miss Mila, if I may ask, what weapon were you using?"

"I, uh..." I scanned my mind for what weapon I had to have used against Tadashi, but I honestly couldn't remember one at all that I had wielded during the fight. "...I don't know"

"I can take it from here ladies and gentlemen" The Alpha lawyer on the other side of our court room smugly said, standing up and proceeding to walk around his table like he was some kind of holomovie lawyer. "As the jury may wish to know, she-

"This isn't a joke Mr. Gashin" The judge pointedly told him this, frowning a little down his glasses at the arrogant display of the lawyer, apparently thinking along the same lines as me that the lawyer was imagining himself to be some kind of holovision show protagonist. "You must remain at your table while you present your evidence; this isn't some kind of show for you to parade around in"

The lawyer was somewhat shocked by being told off by the judge, and quietly slipped back behind his table as some of the people in our defence were snickering in their seats. He decided not to really say much else at that moment, in case he angered the judge further, instead pushing a button on a remote control to bring up a display for the entire court room to view. Shown on the electronic display was a picture of a shattered light bulb, looking large enough to belong to a street lamp.

...Oh, that was right, I had stomped that lamp post and caused it to break over Tadashi's head.

"...You believe a lamp bulb to be a deadly weapon?" The judge clearly didn't agree with the secondary charge against me, lifting an eyebrow to the lawyer as if to ask if he was serious.

"W-Well I mean, she had also used her heels-

"The definition of a deadly weapon is an instrument that is used exclusively to harm another" The judge tutted, beginning to amend something on a document he was holding as he kept talking. "Sadly, with how often baseball bats have been used to harm other people, I cannot drop the charges against Connor Melville without further evidence. However, I can safely acquit Mila Tanthree under her secondary charge of assault with a deadly weapon"

Connor smiled softly at me beside him, clearly happy to at least have one of my charges be dropped, and it was clear from the gentle pats to my hand from Gunner and Bobby that they agreed with him. Matthias, while not nearly as noticeable as the rest of them, did pump his fist quietly in triumph under the table at the early success.

"Now, how do the both of you plead to your charges?" The judge double checked with us, and we naturally told him the same judgement as Bobby and Gunner had. Not guilty. "Alright, now let's hear the lawyers opening statements. From your desks, if you please"

That comment clearly had been directed to the Alpha lawyer on the other side of the court room, but Matthias rose above pointing out this to him, and calmly stood up and waited for the Alpha lawyer to go first.

"Ladies and gentleman, Tadashi Haruna was a good man. He leaves behind a grieving mother and father, thirteen cousins and his death has affected all twenty of his employees at his work, who only knew him as the man who was always there for them. He contributed often to helping out local Alpha children with their development into full adults outside of developing his business, and was an avid believer in his religion" The Alpha lawyer began, obviously spinning a tale about the deceased's entire life, but I honestly was finding it hard to listen to the description without gagging. Connor, who sat the most hidden next to me, imitated vomiting next to me, which I was the only one to notice. I had to agree with him, and so did the other three men at our table, but they weren't able to get away with making the same gesture. "If there was one fault of his, it was that he loved women with a big heart. These people have taken a man too early from this life, and I urge you to see the truth past their deceit"

He sat down smugly, a confident smile still there on his face despite everything. The jury, who I had been a little worried about how they were going to react, seemed unaffected by his "rousing" speech about who Tadashi was. Matthias, who seemingly had written his opening statement down on another notebook, closed it with a bit of anger behind it, seemingly changing his statement to reflect what Mr. Gashin had said.

"Members of the jury and everyone currently present, I would like you to give me the liberty to extend my opening statement for a while longer, in order to properly address what I had just heard" Matthias seethed, slipping back to his dark tone that he had used before to the police officer, but managed to bring it back like he had done before. "The entire opening statement of the accuser's lawyer is a complete sham. At no point does he mention anything pertaining to the legal side of this case, nor the reason for why my defendants are here today. He is purely stating the emotional side of the deceased to try and gain sympathy from the jury, which is not the reason we have been called here today"

"Wha-Objection! Slandering surely cannot be allowed in this court of law!" The other lawyer suddenly stood up again, but the judge didn't seem sympathetic to his objection.

"Slander is indeed against the law, but what the defence lawyer is doing is simply pointing out flaws in your opening statement" The judge pointed this out to the prosecution lawyer, and I could spy Matthias grinning in an almost frighteningly animalistic way with how his opponent was faring so far in the case. But as much as he did scare me a little, that only served to make me happier with the realisation that he was on my side. "Objection dismissed"

"Thank you, your honour. As I was saying, there is absolutely no legal side to his argument, just pure classism directed in favour of Alpha. My employees, who have been harassed and repetitively treated in an inferior manner, are the result of this classist attitude of theirs!" Matthias started to confidently speak throughout the court room now that he was on the offensive, his voice almost booming throughout the room, but at just an acceptable volume that it didn't make people think he was shouting at them. "The actual events that had happened, was that my poor employee Mila was harassed, stalked and nearly kidnapped by the Alpha called Tadashi, purely because she happened to be a pretty looking Omega! The three Beta here today, are at fault only for coming to her rescue, and the very fact that we have been drug in here to listen to these charges after everything is the stupidest thing I have done in years! The short story is simply this, Tadashi Haruna may have been a good person to these people, but that does not change what he had attempted to do to my employees, and it does not change the truth"

Matthias' outburst resonated through the court room loudly, so much so that I honestly was considering clapping for him to show my appreciation, but I held myself back in order to seem professional. Bobby gently interlaced his hand with mine underneath the table, giving me support along with a tender smile, letting me know that everything was going to work out while Matthias was representing us. If I didn't know any better from the others, I would have guessed that his talent was being a lawyer and not being amazing at computers and coding. Then again, I supposed that anyone with emotional weight and some intelligence would have done well against this lawyer that was our opposition.

But it seemed like it wasn't just me that was affected by his words, as there was a quiet amount of discussion rising up from the jury members, a number of them softly talking about what had just happened. Perhaps a number of them were Omega and had suffered under classism before... Or they even could have been Beta who had experienced that, considering how Tadashi the other members of his family seemed to be 'Alpha or nothing at all' in their attitude.

Most of all, the judge had shown some sign outside of impassiveness, even smiling a little in amusement at how fired up Matthias was.

"My clients are not guilty" Matthias smoothly rounded out his opening statement, flicking open his notebook to prepare for what was next, him casually ignoring the aghast faces of the family on the right side of the room... I changed my mind about Blaire being the coolest person in existence, if there was someone more impressive than Matthias in the entire universe, then I would quite happily eat my velvet skirt. "Now, unless the prosecution wants to launch straight into their evidence, I would like to suggest that we start with my defendant's victim impact statements"


	17. Face my fears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mila suffers something close to a panic attack (At least, these are similar to what I have experienced. I have yet to have been formally diagnosed, but so far my doctor and psychologist agree that a panic attack is what I occasionally experience)  
> There's also a heavy amount of victim blaming, which is uncomfortable regardless of whether you have experienced it personally or not

The plan we had made was for the four of us to go in a specific order with our victim impact statements, in the hopes that the most effective of our statements would sway the jury to our side long before the prosecution brought their evidence. Matthias reassured me that we certainly had foolproof evidence that proved our innocence, but there of course was the simple fact that a jury was sometimes biased to emotional facts rather than factual, so he just wanted us to cover our bases completely.

"I'd like to bring forward my first defendant, Bobby Frederick" Matthias announced with a soft, yet firm tone, carefully gesturing Bobby to stand up and be ready. Bobby did rise somewhat confidently, holding his notebook tightly in his hand like it was his lifeline.

Our collective bailiff, an elderly gentleman that looked like he had been working in the court system for years and years beyond our knowledge, acknowledged the order and came forward to collect him from the defendant stand. He honestly looked very friendly, gently guiding Bobby up to the stand beside the judge as though he was his grandfather rather than an impassive court member. After quickly swearing Bobby through the process of the sworn testimony, he was left up there as the elderly gentlemen moved himself back to his original spot, and things were set in motion once more.

"Anytime you're ready, you may begin" The judge calmly ushered him to begin, which made Bobby take a deep breath in to calm himself, before opening his notebook and beginning to read aloud what he had written.

"I honestly never thought I'd be here, in a court room like this. Nothing in the entire day cycle, nor my life, had ever really prepared me for what was going to happen... And it clearly showed. That night cycle, I got taken by surprise as I got a frantic phone call from Mila, her begging me to come help save her" Bobby spoke a bit softly at first, keenly aware of how much his deep voice bounced off the acoustic walls. As he lifted his eyes to look at Matthias for support at one point, he got given a gentle hand signal from his cousin, which was clearly reminding him to raise his voice just a little. He still wasn't quite confident yet, as his eyes still looked for support in the rest of us at the defendant side of the room, and seemed to find it in me as his eyes stopped for a moment at mine. I gently mouthed to him about how he was doing well, which made him take in another deep breath and try again. "In the first moment I couldn't even make out what she was saying due to how scared she was, her yelling about how some Alpha had followed her back to her home"

Matthias began to gently nod his head in approval, clearly finding that he was showing everything quite clearly from that point on. Bobby still was a little unconfident, but I made sure to smile at him softly as his eyes swept our stand again.

"My fright only intensified when I heard what sounded close to a bomb going off in the background, which in hindsight I was told was her front door being broken off it's hinges" Bobby even then began to admit things that he hadn't said around me yet, which only further made it all feel emotionally charged, which is exactly what we had been hoping for. "Me, Connor and Gunner immediately turned around from our company to go and help her, and we arrived in the nick of time right as he was trying to drag her out by her wrists out of her own apartment. From then on, my fright turned into rage. I couldn't believe it, the mere idea of someone willing to do that to her simply because of how she looked was impossible for me to understand. Only when-

"Would you say that your anger caused you to then assume things about the situation?" The lawyer for the prosecution side suddenly interrupted Bobby right as he was getting to the climax of his statement, rattling him quite a bit by throwing him off track. "True, you were under the impression that she was under attack from the sounds over the phone, but was that actually the case? Or was it just your mind twisting things to fit your narrative?"

"What?! There's-

"Objection" Matthias called the single word out sharply, managing to cut off Bobby at just the right moment before he began to argue with the lawyer, which would have made Bobby only look worse in the jury and judges eyes. "This is not a witness the opposition can analyse for the case; it is a victim impact statement. The prosecution has no right to interrupt, and certainly not to scrutinise how he felt during the event"

"I agree, that interruption was distasteful Mr. Gashin" The judge clearly seemed to agree with Matthias, giving the lawyer an annoyed look with how many times this had been so far that he had to correct him on his improper procedure. Even so, the jury seemed unsure what to make of Bobby's statement now after that had been pointed out to them... Which seemed to have been exactly what the lawyer was going for, smirking as he saw the confused and worried discussions between the jury members. "Objection sustained"

"As you wish" The lawyer calmly sat back down, steepling his fingers in front of his face with the confidence of a smug villain, sowing the damage he had intended to do in an almost frightening efficiency. It was even more terrifying when I processed the idea that the lawyer had simple been pretending to be incompetent before, but was actually perfectly good at his job and was playing his cards only when it would do the most damage to our side of the case.

Bobby sighed softly, but brought up what was left of his courage to keep going on, returning to his statement. I was planning on listening to the rest of it, but Matthias leaning over Gunner to touch me on the shoulder distracted me.

"You're going to be going next" Matthias warned me as early as he could, but it already seemed far too late to be telling me that I was going to be the next one up there, considering how "well" that had gone for Bobby.

"...I thought I was going last?" I double checked with him, even though I was quite certain I had heard him correctly. Connor and Gunner, despite doing their best not to eavesdrop on me and Matthias, couldn't really help it as the both of them were literally right next to me. A normal response from them ensued, with Connor looking at Matthias like he had grown two heads while Gunner just frowned at the idea.

"You were, but we really need to salvage what just happened" Matthias sighed, running his hand momentarily through his hair in frustration. "I honestly hadn't expected him to do that, but we can easily recover from this if we have our most emotional statement right after this"

Right as our one sided decision came to a conclusion, Bobby had finished his statement and was being escorted back by the elderly bailiff to our table. He looked significantly paler than when he had gone up; clearly thinking that he had somehow bombed his statement by his choice of words. It only served to make me more upset at the lawyer against us, as Bobby was allowed to feel however he darn well pleased about what had happened.

"My next defendant will be Mila Tanthree" Matthias did stick to his word about me being next, and I stood up to notice that the elderly bailiff had patiently waited at our stand for whoever was going up after Bobby. Like Bobby, he gently escorted me over to the stand like I was his granddaughter rather than a random defendant, even being so kind to give me a shoulder to lean on when I had to go up the stairs to sit on the witness stand.

"I have a tiny little grandchild who looks a little like you, you know?" He divulged that small bit of information, smiling kindly at me as I looked a little surprised to hear it. "She's a little younger than you, but likely just as polite and courteous"

"Oh, uh, thank you" I wasn't sure what else to say under the circumstances, my usual happy demeanour being a little hard to find with how stressed out I was about the case. He didn't seem to mind, quickly swearing me in and then leaving me there on my own.

The judge didn't say anything out loud, clearly finding that his earlier statement towards Bobby applied to me as well, that I was perfectly fine to begin whenever I found my courage. While before I had wondered a little about why Bobby had needed so much support to talk on the witness stand, I certainly had changed my stance on it now that I was there.

Everyone, and I mean  _everyone,_ was staring at me. It felt like I was somehow in trouble, despite the fact I knew that what I did was not wrong in the slightest. The glares, leers and other assorted forms of disdain for me became too much to handle, so I instead tried to distract myself by trying to focus on the jury to my left, but they too were all glued to me there. Too intimidated by them, and worried that I would look weak by looking only at my friends at the defence side, I tried to look down at my notes instead.

Truth be told, I hadn't written anything coherent about what I wanted to say. I had only put down ideas of what had happened, but lacked the words to express the feelings I had felt during that time. I had literally nothing, I was just being stared at, being asked of the worst time of my life and I had nothing.

"I... I..." I struggled to find any words in my mind, even forgetting the option where I could have just asked Matthias if I could come down rather than keep going, struggling to pick up my notebook in my shaking hands. They shook particularly bad at one point, making me drop my notebook by accident. I watched in horror as it first banged into the stand loudly, before it tumbled off the side and fell open onto the floor below.

"Oh, let me get that for you dear" The elderly bailiff was the first one to really speak beyond me in what felt like forever, coming over from his position next to the judge so that I wouldn't have to retrieve it myself. He was sympathetic to my case, that much was obvious from his remark about me looking like his granddaughter, but it didn't change the fact that I had no clue what I was supposed to say to save our case.

If I failed to save the case with my emotional impact, then the others would be charged with first degree murder or accessory to first degree murder, all for coming to help me. Three of the men I loved with all my heart would go to jail, and it would be all my fault.

And so, just as I had jokingly asked Gunner a couple of nights ago, I started to bawl on the witness stand. It started with possibly harmless amount of tears just slipping down my cheeks, but that changed into a wailing fit like the flip of a switch, with me clutching onto the notebook in my hands for dear life.

"Tanner, no!" I could barely hear Paul whisper animatedly at Tanner, but it was extremely hard to catch in my confused and emotional state. "I want to go up too, but-

"Excuse me sir, you need to sit back down"

"No, no you don't understand" I could hear a security guard try to make Tanner sit back down, but he truly seemed like he didn't want to listen to either of them. "She needs someone, she-

"Sorry about that, we got him" Jfred reassured the two security guards that Tanner wasn't going to be a problem, him and Jfred inserting themselves into that row to forcibly make him sit down. I couldn't hear any further what they hurriedly whispered to him, but I assumed it was them explaining to him about how no matter what, that it was a bad idea to come charging up to the witness stand to get me. Even with their warnings however, Tanner's shoulders still seemed to be impossibly tense in his suit, and I was quite certain that he would have completely ignored them if it wasn't for the fact that the both of them were  _literally_ holding him by his arms and forcing him to remain seated with their superior strength.

"...As you can see your honour, Mila is unable to deliver her victim impact statement" Matthias decided to mercifully cut my turn short, pointing out to both him and possibly the jury that I was beside myself. "I'm sure her current actions speak louder than words"

"Indeed they do" The judge even showed a glimpse of a sad look in his eyes, perhaps from a memory of someone else he had seen in my state before. Before long, he gestured for the bailiff to come and escort me off, and the bailiff was honestly shooting over to me like a bullet the moment he had been given permission. "If you could prepare your next defendant in the meantime, that would help things"

"Come here darling, I've got you" The elderly bailiff didn't even bother to hide his bias for me by that point, gently guiding me down from the witness stand like I was made of glass. The members of the prosecution still weren't impressed with me, likely thinking that I was using crocodile tears to sway the jury, but I honestly was too upset to pay any attention to them. "Here, let's get you back to your friends"

My breakdown seemed to have affected the others just as much as it had Tanner and Paul, as Bobby was beside himself with worry when I made it back, wrapping me in a hug the moment I was close enough to do so. Connor seemed like he wanted to as well, but was advised away from it by a shake of the head by Matthias.

"Sorry, but you're going to be up next, so it's a bad idea" Matthias quickly explained his reasoning for why Connor wasn't allowed to hug me as well, possibly before Connor was going to protest and ask why he couldn't. But before the judge could call for the next defendant, Matthias quickly tapped Bobby on the shoulder and made a quick shooing motion so that he could talk to me. As I began to turn around, did I suddenly see the amount of people that had been affected in the jury. There wasn't a single dry eye there, either coming from personal experience on having dealt with things like I had just gone through or because they knew people who had... It was quite a raw emotion, and it was endlessly more powerful than I had ever thought possible. "Mila, you are allowed to call for a break here if you need it, but... If you can just barely manage to stay, then we can really use that"

"Jesus Matt, that's a horrific thing to make her do after what just happened" Gunner voiced his displeasure immediately, and it seemed that Bobby and Connor agreed heavily if their newly directed frowns at our boss was anything to go by. I imagine that Tanner and Paul would have been the same in their reactions had they been around to hear them, but I could only imagine the vehement denial of it ever being an option from the former of those two.

"I know it is, I really do" Matthias spoke honestly, an apologetic frown on his face even as he spoke about his own idea. It did make sense in a way, as the longer we would be able to keep the emotions running for the jury the better it would be for us, but it was also an exceedingly cruel thing to experience first-hand. "But I'm throwing everything I have here at the jury, judge and lawyer. It doesn't matter if the 'nice option' ends up getting you guys an eighty percent of being acquitted, that would still be twenty percent too high for me of you being charged"

"...I'll do it" I managed to get those three words through my sniffles and further blubbering, almost clinging a little onto Gunner's arm when one went around my shoulder. Already expecting their question of 'are you sure?', I nodded my head the moment Matthias gave me a look that signified that question. "If it keeps them safe, I'll do it"

"Defence lawyer, if you are ready" The judge took our momentary pause in our discussion to remind them that we still had two people to go up, with Connor readying himself by straightening his tie and nodding his head sharply at Matthias.

"We are" Matthias signified that we were prepared to move on, letting the three of us not going up to sit down, but slightly switched around so that I was now able to remain between Bobby and Gunner. "My next defendant will be Connor Melville"

Connor wasn't nearly as afraid as me or Bobby were before, walking beside the elderly bailiff like he was just going to work in the morning and nothing more. Even when the Alpha lawyer seemed to sneer at him, Connor just responded in his usual manner by glaring at him, before focusing on being sworn in by the bailiff. Immediately after the bailiff left him, Connor flipped open the pages of his notebook and began to read, obviously wishing to get me and everyone from the company out of that court room as fast as he could manage.

"I didn't really write a long statement, so everyone is going to have to forgive me for being short and simple" Connor began simply, even thinking it over for a bit and shutting his notebook after some consideration. Like Matthias, he looked like he was changing his plans on what to say after seeing some of the things going on in the court, a fire burning in his eyes at the way everyone had been treated by the Alpha bar owner and now the lawyer. "For a long time I was scared... But not for myself, for Mila. When Bobby told me that someone was trying to kidnap her, I was just... Christ, I was scared. Scared that we'd be too late to save her, scared that even if we did manage to save her that she'd never feel safe in her own skin again, and most certainly scared that she'd be blamed for everything happening to her"

For a brief moment Connor sought out my eyes, the pure overflowing regret obvious in his eyes from not being able to prevent that last one from happening to me. He was just like Tanner in that regard, I suppose. However, once he saw the despair still lingering in my eyes from my time on the witness stand, it just lighted that burning passion in him again even stronger than it had before.

"But you know what?! Screw that lawyer-

"Watch your tone with me" The lawyer tried to make Connor seem like he was being unreasonable as he did with Bobby, but Connor wasn't having any of it. Matthias looked like he considered stopping Connor in his tirade, but bit his lip for a moment as he thought about how the emotional side of Connor would affect the jury after my breakdown. With a wary eye, Matthias seemed to allow it. "Just because you-

"Shut up, you don't get to talk to me that way when you're trying to ruin our lives" Connor cut the lawyer off before he could keep going, responding with such an honest fire in his soul that the jury seemed compelled to listen to him.

"Objection!" The lawyer didn't take kindly to being told off by a Beta, his face almost red with not just Matthias, but now Connor not giving him any respect. "Defendant is being argumentative!"

"You were the one to start the argument with him" The judge sighed, his face clearly showing that he was sick and tired of the Alpha lawyer by now. I made a mental list to buy the judge some nice chocolates after the case was done, regardless of the outcome, just to thank him for being so patient with everything. "Objection dismissed"

"As I was saying, screw that lawyer, being angry or upset is a legitimate emotion" Connor continued on now that the Alpha lawyer had been slammed down for arguing with him, effectively trying to redeem Bobby's victim statement as well as bring his own across. "After hearing that we had to come in to somehow argue the fact that we defended ourselves, I have been livid! Not only that, this guy has the nerve to say that Bobby isn't allowed to be mad?! An Alpha literally tried to kidnap Mila for god only knows what, threatened to literally  ** _tear_** Bobby's head off and keep it as a trophy, his bodyguard nearly pummelled Gunner into the pavement, threatened to shoot all of us and immediately afterwards said he would break Mila's neck, AND WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE MAD??!!"

It became clearly obvious after a couple of seconds that a lot of these details hadn't been divulged to the jury, the judge or the bailiff at all, the prosecution failing to tell them (Obviously, as it would look bad for their case) and with Matthias trying to keep his cards close to his chest until it was exactly the right time to spring them out. In a split second, all of the jury's sympathy for me suddenly ignited into pure rage for the lawyer, whom had turned a very off shade of white. The bailiff bristled where he stood at the news, while the judge slowly leaned forward off his seat to look Connor dead in the eyes.

"Is that so?" The judge asked very, very firmly to Connor about the validity of what he said, almost as if to remind him that he was under oath and that lying would not be permitted. Connor firmly nodded his head, which made the judge then tilt his head around, staring straight at Matthias. "And... Would you happen to have proof of this?"

I could see Matthias ponder over how to word his response to that, as his original plan was to bring all of his evidence at the end in a triumphant manner (Sort of how he had planned the victim impact statements). But after a quick look around the room, it was clear that the emotional tension in the room wasn't going to get any higher than it had with mine and then Connor's statements directly after each other. Specifically because I hadn't asked for a timeout and because Connor had taken the bull by the horns to actually confront everyone with the truth of both his anger and what we had been through, we had reached an unprecedented level that Matthias could see clearly in the air, the sad emotions and anger being so vivid that you could have cut it with a rusty fork.

And so, Matthias decided to stop playing the safe game, and put all of his cards in.

"I do" Matthias played his hand, letting everyone know in the court room that he wasn't messing about anymore. It was so cathartic to hear him tell them that, but it was even more satisfying to see the shock in the prosecution's lawyer, and subsequently the family. "I have acquired holovideo footage from surveillance cameras on the street where the attack took place, and there is even audio from one of the guys' phones that had been recording at the time"

The chaos that broke out in the court room was immediate, every member of the family of course hurling more insults and denial our way, while the jury were almost scanning their own group of sixteen to make sure that there was nobody who was going to be voting against us. It almost seemed like there was going to be a riot, with the jury members looking like they would have been willing to assault someone in their box who still denied us being mistreated, while the family seemed almost ready to rumble with our defence side, and it was clear from Tanner, Paul, Bryan, Kevin, Marvin, Jfred and Blaire's faces that they were more than willing to give it to them if they started it. Even the security guards began to look uneasy with the growing animosity, but the catastrophically loud banging of the judges gavel somehow seemed to bring everything back to a somewhat manageable order.

"ORDER! I will not have a war in my court room, so help me!" The judge yelled to be heard over all of the arguing, but I was proud to notice that our defence side was the first to listen to the command, with the jury following a little bit afterwards as they realised that all sixteen of them were of one mind on it all. The family was unsurprisingly the last ones to stop, still hurling vitriol at everyone and anyone they darn well pleased. "Security, escort the prosecution side out of the court room"

"Surely that's not-

"I made it very clear to them that another bout of disruptive behaviour would make me remove them" The judge was absolutely boiling by this point, almost looking like he wanted to order the lawyer to leave as well, but knew that he couldn't do that with him until he truly was out of line. With an annoyed manner from all of the arguing, the judge turned to Connor who was still patiently waiting on the witness stand. Contrast to his outburst, Connor had been completely silent during that entire fiasco, as had the rest of us on the defence stand. "Now, unless you have something more to add?"

"No sir, that's all from me"

"Thank goodness for that" The judge seemed relieved that Connor was well and truly done, obviously looking like he wanted this case done by now to never have to deal with such an unprofessional lot. He really deserved those chocolates now. "Gunner Gomez, do you have something to add that hasn't been said?"

"They've more or less said what I've been thinking about" Gunner admitted, not even having to go to the witness stand to say what he had wanted to say. "I'm just glad that this case didn't turn out like what had happened to my friend during high school. He... My friend, he had been assaulted by an Alpha during his lunch break when he had forgotten to take his suppressants during the Omega heat week, and..."

This story took me admittedly by surprise, as I had never heard him mention his friend before. Then again, I had only been around for four days at the company, so there naturally were things that I didn't know about him yet. Regardless about knowing it or not, I gently held his hand under the table, which he gratefully squeezed in gratitude.

"Understandable" The judge said the one word, but it was clearly said with actual emotional understanding of the situation Gunner was referring to. After everything, things were looking up for us. With one final look from the judge to make sure the prosecution's family had left, the judge was ready to move on from that awkward moment. "Now, let's get to the evidence. I really want to see this footage of yours"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gunner doesn't actually have a friend that died in high school (That probably was obvious, but I thought I'd mention it at least)


	18. Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am no lawyer. I base this off what I consider to be basic logic and what small details I have picked up from court cases I have seen on television

The four of us who were accused on the witness stand each held each other’s hands, desperately hoping that Matthias would be able to make it a slam dunk case in our favour. The prosecution went first with their evidence, as Matthias was the kind of person to go second in chess to see what the opponent would do first, and that simple choice had made things infinitely easier for the four of us.

Effectively, the prosecution had  _no_ evidence supporting their theory that we had planned to murder Tadashi beforehand. They certainly had all of the evidence that was easily found at the crime scene, but none of it was truly incriminating beyond proving that we certainly had killed Tadashi and his bodyguard. Everything from Connor's abandoned baseball bat, his forgotten hammer and mallet, the blades he had formed for Gunner's feet, the broken stun baton, the shattered lamp bulb that I had stomped on, everybody's clothing and the gun Bobby had fired... None of it definitively disproved our theory of using them all for self-defence.

Every time something remotely suspicious came up, Matthias would calmly present another question to the prosecution which would destroy any belief that there was wrong doing. When the lawyer tried to insinuate that the gun belonged to Bobby and the rest of us considering the gunshot residue that was found on the three Beta, Matthias calmly asked who the gun was registered to and reminded the jury and judge that the amount of gunshot residue found on Gunner and Connor was down to how close they had stood to the gun when it had fired, not to mention the fact that there only were two sets of fingerprints on the gun (Them belonging to Bobby and Tadashi respectively).

The first time that we actually had anything to worry about was when they called up a witness to the stand, long after the lawyer had decided that physical evidence wasn't going to be enough. It was a lady, looking perhaps five to ten years older than me, and there was something about her blonde hair that was familiar to me.

"Miss Katra, thank you for coming in to provide an eye witness statement" Our opponent Mr. Gashin greeted her in a professional manner, but I had the feeling that he already knew who she was before this court case. Only when I peered closer at her face did something slowly start to appear in my mind... The VIP section of 'Fight or flight'? "Can you please state what your relationship is to the deceased?"

"Of course darling, I'm one of his show girls" Katra proceeded to answer with a slightly nasally tone to her voice, her mannerisms and attitude striking me as very flamboyant and... Well, a little unprofessional for a court room I supposed. "That's a polite term to say that I lie about and look pretty in his VIP section of his nightclub. Isn't my most favourite job in the world, but hey, a girl's got bills to pay"

No matter what Gashin had intended to do, that was a bad start to his witness waltzing in. Even if she were to lie for him, she was already putting her now dead boss in a not so favourable light. Even if I hadn't figured that out myself, there was a pretty clear signal that it was good for us the moment I looked at Matthias' face out of the corner of my eye. That animalistic smile was back on his face, already preparing for things to ask her in a counter argument like it was all a game to him... God, he was cool.

"So Miss Katra, can you confirm the four people who entered the VIP section late on the fourteenth day of the third month?" He asked her a simple question, but she certainly seemed in the mood for talking, especially with what she had to say to that single question.

"I can do you one better, I can even tell you about them coming into the nightclub an hour before! The boys, while looking kind of cute from a distance, looked so hopelessly lost in there around her, it was like two different kinds of high school kids trying to hang together from different cliques" She babbled on for a long while about details that seemed a little excessive, especially the parts where she gushed about how cute she found my three companions. Speaking of them, they honestly didn't seem to know what to do with the compliments, ranging from either disgust to being confused on how to feel about it. "You have the jock, that's the Asian one. There's the artsy dance type of guy, that's the one looking a bit like a Latino-

"Um, well... Yes, I suppose that is very interesting but-

"I'm not finished yet! Like I said, there's the Latino dance one, and of course the nerdy one with the thick arms. It was even more funny to see her with them, as she was definitely a mix between the preppy goody two shoes and the punky goth one, which I've never actually seen in a person before now that I think about it" Katra kept going over the lawyer that had called her in, her interruption seeming so comical that it made several people in our side of the court room giggle behind the defence stand. Gashin almost looked like he wanted to bang his head against his prosecution table with how long winded Katra was making everything, which wasn't exactly helped by the fact that she used her long nails to tap against the wood of the witness stand for emphasis. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, they looked very nervous at first in the club, but after a drink or two they started to loosen up around her and they went to dance. After a bit, Tadashi seemed to notice the Goth girl and apparently liked what he saw, since he extended an invitation to her to come join in"

"Ah, alright!" Gashin was so grateful to see that she had come back to the original subject of her own volition, eager to catch her attention before it went wandering again. "And did they accept the invitation?"

"They must have, because soon all four of them came up the stairs to our little den. Hank - He was our guard before this, bless him - Hank didn't exactly like all of them being there though, as Tadashi had only asked for the girl to come around" Katra sighed softly, obviously at least missing the security guard that had worked as their bouncer for the VIP section of his nightclub. "The girl wasn't so happy with that, so she sweet talked Hank to let them in. Hank asked Tadashi of course, and he let them in"

...So far, everything she was saying was the truth. However, it could be interpreted as a bad thing, and I could feel that the other three heard it too with their hands tightening around each other’s and mine. Matthias wasn't bothered however, gently pressing a hand onto my shoulder to get me to relax that small amount.

"And how would you describe the relationship between your boss Tadashi and her?" Gashin asked Katra, finally getting down to the fine details to really try and nail me down with doubt in the jury's mind. "Would you say that she flirted with him?"

"Oh hell no, she didn't want to touch Tadashi with a ten foot pole. Quiet as a church mouse the moment she sat down, looking very uncomfortable the entire time" Katra immediately shut down the idea that I had been interested in Tadashi, the shock of the truth smacking Gashin in the face. It was such a firm denial that it made Gunner actually snort softly next to me in a burst of near silent laughter. "In fact, I actually think that's why she didn't want to be on her own there, as she probably would have been too afraid to leave if she was on her own, you know? So anyway, Tadashi starts being really... What do they call it? Overt? He starts being really overt with her, and she's _super_ weirded out by it. Her friends start to come to her defence, and he just takes the plunge by asking if she had a boyfriend, and she said that she did! Some guy called Paul, I don't know"

Matthias' face didn't shift that much beyond lifting a single eyebrow at the news, but clearly didn't think much beyond it as it being an excuse at the time to get Tadashi off my back. Which it was... At the time.

"So then colour me absolutely surprised when he then throws some money on the table!" Katra kept going, despite the ghostly white appearance of the person who had specifically brought her in, as he knew that trying to interrupt her would get him nowhere and only make his side look even more suspicious than it already did. Which wasn't hard at this point I supposed, as she really wasn't helping his side of things. "I didn't really get to count it straight away, as I had my hands full in his hair - Part of my job as well, as much as I didn't like it - but I could tell it was way more credits than I get for my payment for an entire month! I was so jealous for a second, when I remembered that Tadashi was probably trying to solicit her to bump ugly parts together as you know-

"Excuse me for interrupting, but can I just ask you a bit further about something you just mentioned?" Matthias smoothly interrupted Katra, but ended up not annoying her by essentially offering her another opportunity to talk about another subject. "Was it a common occurrence for Tadashi to solicit sex from girls coming to the nightclub?"

"Oh trust me honey, it wasn't just girls. Omega were his favourite kind of class to... Ahem, pursue for that sort of endeavour, regardless of their gender" Katra delicately phrased the actual act, but it became obvious that this wasn't the only time he had tried to insist on something with money before. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel better with that knowledge, but it certainly was making me sick to my stomach to listen to it. "Actually, now that you ask, he did once do that with a Beta as well. Anyway, I have to admit that this time was a bit surprising for me"

"And why might that be?" Matthias gently pressed her on, taking full opportunity to make use of the ever pressing silence that was coming from the prosecution lawyer. Even the judge and bailiff were interested in everything going on, the entire court room sitting close to the edge of their seats to hear what she was going to say next.

"Because this girl - Sorry darling, I don't know your name - was the first to actually reject his offer. She told her friends that she wanted to leave, and they all stormed out as a unit! I was so proud of them - You know, Beta and girl power and all that - but I couldn't clap for them as they left because Tadashi would have fired me on the spot had he heard me" Katra told the entire court room this as though she was sharing some spicy secret with a singular person, obviously very impressed by the fact I had turned it down. By this point, the Alpha lawyer had essentially given up, as he knew there was no way that he was going to win his court case anymore but had no choice but to keep listening because there was no concede option for him. "Let me tell you, he was pissed with a capital P! Shut down his entire nightclub for the night cycle! Ironic for the name, I know, but he was insistent! He and Hank then stormed off to who knows where after kicking me and the other girls out, and then I heard the next day cycle that the both of them had been killed"

"Thank you for the wonderful story, Miss Katra" Matthias graciously thanked her for her help with winning our case, casting a glance over to realise that the opposition was no longer even bothering to lift his head from the desk on the prosecution side. "I do believe you are no longer needed by Mr. Gashin, so you may sit somewhere in the defence side if you wish"

"Why thank you darling!" Katra bumbled her way off the witness stand with the help of our ever present bailiff, as Gashin didn't stop either of them. The judge, albeit thinking it was a bit improper to not ask the prosecution for their side of the story now, was not that upset with the idea that the case would hurry along a little. As she came past us with her loud heels and jangling earrings, she gently reached out a hand to tap my shoulder in a friendly way for a moment before she went to sit down. "Good luck honey, I know you and your friends can do this!"

I didn't even remotely know why she was on our side, but I was still glad to see that she was on our side. After I gave her a thankful smile, she bustled off to our side of the court room, sitting right beside Blaire, who also seemed to give her a grateful smile for her contributions.

"So, considering the recent evidence and the eye witness that the prosecution has showed to the judge and jury, I do believe that there is now only the doubt as to whether my clients had planned to kill Tadashi and his bodyguard Hank" Matthias said that with a gentle clap of his hands, drawing everyone's attention to him to finally get this case sorted out. "In that regards, I have audio recordings from two of my employee's phones, and a holovideo surveillance footage from a security camera that was on the street where the attack took place. I do believe seeing the footage first will give people a clear idea, and make more sense of the audio"

With that, Matthias held out an old video cassette out for the bailiff to take up to the evidence table to be played. After our bailiff commented on how he 'hadn't seen one of those in years', he gladly took it from Matthias and brought it over to the holoscreen display and inserted it into a small nook at the bottom to play it.

"As you can see here at the beginning, this is a view of the motel that the owners had set up to try and prevent robbers. My employee Mila luckily had her apartment on the top floor at the side here, so the footage easily shows everything that we need to see" Matthias explained it with a firm and all-encompassing attitude, highlighting everything. "When the audio comes into play, I'll pause it and explain as we go"

The footage then began, showing me and the three men who had escorted me home. After waving them off with a cheer, my past self proceeded to go inside my apartment while Connor, Gunner and Bobby jogged out of view of the camera, likely to head back to their company building. Only a minute passed by after that before Tadashi and Hank appeared out of the side of the camera where I and the Beta had come from, Tadashi casting an annoyed glare at what was no doubt the retreating forms of the guys before he turned to stomp up the stairs to my apartment. Hank just obediently waited by the entrance to the motel while Tadashi knocked on my apartment door, which soon opened to show my face again, and also perfectly captured my frightened face once I realised who it was. After a small bit of dialogue passed between us, the footage showed Tadashi pointing at me, then the lock on my door which was holding him back from me, then back up to me again. With a jitter in my hands, my past self proceeded to then shut the door very slowly.

"Mila informed me that this moment here is where Tadashi had ordered her to open the door for him, lest there be consequences" Matthias paused the footage for a moment to explain in further detail what the jury had just seen, before preparing another remote for something else, again handing something to the bailiff to insert into the holoscreen. In the moment it took for the bailiff to slot that one in as well, I cast a glance back at my defence side, only to see that  _everyone_ was utterly shocked at the footage they were seeing, as Matthias had kept a tight leash on who could and couldn't see it before the trial. Shock quickly turned to rage however, none more livid in their skin than Tanner and Paul in their seats, almost looking like they would have honestly decked one of the family on the prosecution side if they had happened to still be in the court room at the time. "It was around then that Mila made a call to Bobby, asking him for help"

As the footage played again, there wasn't much to see because it mainly consisted of Tadashi and Hank standing around, but the audio that played over it was chilling to revisit.

_"Mila! Hey, what's up? Did you forget to ask us something, or-_

_"BobbypleasecomehelpmethenightclubownerisatmyfrontdoorandIdon'tknowwhattodohe'stellingmetoopenthedoorandI'mscaredbut-_

_"Whoa whoa, slow down, I can't understand what you're saying. Now, try again"_

_"The night club owner is in front of my door, he followed us after we left and he waited until you guys left to come and knock on my front door. He's telling me to open the front door to let him in, but I'm scared about what he's going to do if-_

Quite close to what Bobby had described in his victim impact statement, a very loud bang sounded in the audio as if someone had literally set off a bomb, but the footage proved to everyone that it was indeed Tadashi breaking the door down with an almighty heave of his foot. The Tadashi on the footage proceeded to move out of view by entering my apartment, but the Tadashi on the audio was as clear as day.

_"COME HERE!!"_

The shout replaying on the audio frightened me in real life so much that I harshly dragged my hands back from Bobby and Gunner respectively, before trying to curl into a ball on the chair that I sat on. Both Bobby and Gunner tried to make me feel safer by hugging me between them securely, and I could barely make out Connor softly whispering about how Tadashi couldn't hurt me. Matthias, while looking extremely sorry for the fact he had reopened a sensitive wound for me, knew he couldn't pause the tape and footage at the time as then we would have lost some valuable emotional impact against the prosecution. So with an extremely apologetic and remorseful look in his eyes towards me, he soldiered on and allowed the footage and audio to keep playing.

_"Mila?! Mila, what's happening?! Oh my god... Connor! Grab some stuff from your forge, we need to go and help Mila! It's an emergency!"_

That dialogue was entirely new to me for some reason, and it clicked after a couple of seconds that it had to be what Bobby was trying to say to me while I was trying to barricade myself in my room at the time. There also came some garbled audio that somewhat sounded like Gunner and Connor in the background, as well as... Tanner, I think, before the sound of heavy footsteps started to pound through the audio, as well as heavy breathing coming from Bobby's voice the moment he spoke next.

_"Mila! Mila! Mila, please speak to me!"_

_"I'm here"_

_"We're on our way back, just keep him at bay and we'll come and save you! Connor grabbed some things from his forge, so we'll definitely save you!"_

...The pure panic in his voice. I couldn't hear it at the time because of the terror I had felt at the time, but he was so panicked in the audio that it was palatable for anyone to tell how frightened he had been at the time for me.

Another loud 'explosion' sounded in the audio, and Matthias smoothly paused it for less than a couple of seconds to explain to everyone that the noise was my bedroom door being blown open, before just as quickly playing the audio again.

_"You are working on my last nerve!"_

Directly after that first angry outburst from Tadashi, a weird  _thunk_ sounded from the audio, before everything else seemed to suddenly be a lot quieter as if it was now far away from me.

"If I may ask Miss Mila" The judge quickly asked a question, forcing Matthias to pause both audio and footage so as to not have to rewind it or make anyone miss anything. "What had happened right there?"

"Oh, um... I had thrown my phone at him to try and make him go away" I explained, of course realising after the fact that it was not really that smart of an idea, but I had the excuse of panic and adrenaline in my excuses. The rest of the audio was sadly too soft to really make out exactly what we were saying further, but it was obvious that a struggle was going on. It was right at that time that Matthias paused both footage and audio, and held out another device for the bailiff.

"The audio on Mila's phone isn't really helpful any further, but this one from Bobby's phone should do for the rest of the footage, as he had forgotten to hang up after reaching her home" He explained, transitioning from the first audio to the second nicely, and playing both of them again.

Right at the corner of the screen again, Bobby, Gunner and Connor appeared again, but looking very frazzled and worried. On Connor's back was the satchel of his stuff that he had grabbed from his forge, and out of the corner of his bag stuck out the metal bat that he would later use. The three of them then proceeded to duck around Hank the guard and up the stairs to my apartment, where the audio resumed.

_"Let go of me!"_

_"You heard the lady, let her go!"_

After that small bit of dialogue with Connor coming to my defence, I allowed myself to retract from the situation in real life to not listen to it any further. I certainly wasn't about to relive it with every destructive thing happening, so I just focused on holding Bobby and Gunner's hands again and letting the warmth of Connor's soothing back rubs relax me. After a daunting twenty minutes, we finally heard the last piece of the audio with the ear splitting  _bang_ of the gun, the footage now showing the four of us freaking out for a couple of minutes longer, before eventually calling the police.

"And that is the evidence I have to present your honour" Matthias came to a close on his side of the case, accepting the individual pieces of cassette and devices that held the audio and footage back from the bailiff. "I did have more, but the prosecution brought them all out during his own presentation"

The judge hummed a note of approval, accepting the fact that our side was now done. Oddly enough, Gashin had dropped his attitude of keeping his head mutely pressed to his table, instead having it now upright and... Glaring at us the moment our audio had Bobby, Gunner and Connor talking about things happening in eighteen years’ time. Matthias didn't miss it, keeping the opposing lawyer in the corner of his eye at all times.

"Jury, do you need time to deliberate?" The judge asked the sixteen people in the box to his left, and a single lady with long black hair stood up as their representative, softly telling the judge that they had already made up their mind. "I see. Usually I would push you all to think about it longer, but this case is already quite informal in many manners as it is... So we'll proceed to the verdict"

Matthias gestured for the four of us to stand to hear the result, but it was obvious from his relaxed stance that he was confident in the decision that was going to come from them. I was too of course, but there was always that ever present slight worry in the back of my mind that the jury were being bribed or were simply frightened of vengeance by the family. At the very least, nobody had to worry in solitude any longer, as the result was well and truly here.

"Members of the jury, do you find Mila Tanthree guilty of accessory to first degree murder?" The judge asked of them, which earned me a direct glance from the lady with the long black hair.

"We have ruled Mila Tanthree as not guilty under accessory to first degree murder" She spoke as though she was speaking directly to me, and my relief was evident immediately as I let out a shuddering breath from my lungs. Connor, Gunner and Bobby were over the moon already despite not knowing their own verdicts just yet, smiling happily at me as I allowed my reality to sink in. "We hereby acquit her of all charges against her, and rule her actions in this incident under self defense"

"Do you find Connor Melville guilty of accessory to first degree murder, and assault with a deadly weapon?"

"We have ruled Connor Melville as not guilty under accessory to first degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He is hereby acquitted under all of his charges, and rule his actions in this incident under self defense"

"Do you find Bobby Frederick guilty of first degree murder?"

"We have ruled Bobby Frederick as not guilty under first degree murder. He is hereby acquitted under all of his charges, and rule his actions in this incident under self defense"

"Do you find Gunner Gomez guilty of first degree murder?"

"We have ruled Gunner Gomez as not guilty under first degree murder. He is hereby acquitted under all of his charges, and rule his actions in this incident under self defense"

"All defendants have been acquitted of their charges" The judge seemed quite pleased with the result, him and the bailiff smiling at the four of us on the defence stand as we stood there in absolute rapture from the results. "This case has been ruled accordingly, and you are all free to leave. Court dismissed"

The moment the judge slammed the gavel down for the last time, all four of us on the defence stand burst into a cheer with each other, the three of them squishing me in what felt like a bone crushing hug. Matthias, while not exactly eager to be squished to a pulp in a hug, looked endlessly happy at achieving our freedom, excitedly pumping his fist in the air next to us. Tanner and Paul were the first to charge up to the front of the room, eagerly also giving me excited hugs the moment the other three gave me some space. I couldn't care less with how rough they were being in their hugs, I was so happy!

That happiness nearly threatened to leave the moment the Alpha lawyer from before, Gashin, came stalking over with murder in his eyes. That wasn't an exaggeration, he truly looked like he was ready to kill some of us on the spot for the simple fact that he had failed to convict us and because his client was dead because of us.

The five Beta who cared for me dearly were already next to me before Gashin could even fully cross the room, with the more bulky men (Connor, Bobby and Tanner) acting as a front guard, but it was obviously not needed. Jfred and Bryan, whom had already been making their way to the front of the room calmly stepped in the way, blocking Gashin from reaching us.

"Is there a problem here?" Bryan calmly, if a bit darkly, asked Gashin as he was forced to grind to a halt to not bang into either Alpha.

"This entire court ruling was a sham" Gashin hissed at the lot of us, him obviously disregarding the disgruntled appearances of the security guards in the background again. "If the jury wasn't filled with Beta and Omega, those shitheads would be in jail!"

"And what does that say about Alpha, hm? That all Alpha can do no wrong?" Matthias tested him with a cheeky grin, safely tucked away behind his brother and brother-in-law away from the clenched fists of the man who looked like he would assault him. "By the way, I was wondering about something all this time... Katra?"

"Yes darling?" Katra happily chirped to him right after she gave me a small hug to show she was happy that I had made it out unharmed in the court trial, her stark platinum blonde bob cut fluttering in the wind along with her long dangly earrings.

"Do you happen to know Gashin already before this court date?" Matthias asked her, a wolfish grin on his face the moment he looked back at Gashin, clearly knowing that he had struck a nerve there the moment the latter of the two looked slightly concerned with this line of questioning.

"Oh of course I do, he's Tadashi's cousin! Something about him being his mother's-sister's-son?" Katra asked herself that final question, tapping one of her long, red and admittedly sharp nails against her lip in thought. The moment the court room knew this however, it just served to keep us safer, as all of the security guards closed in on Gashin and ignored the rest of us.

"Gashin Haruna, you're under arrest for the obstruction of justice" One of the security guards immediately attempted to arrest him, which was right when Matthias decided that we had overstayed our welcome, ushering our entire group out of the court room as the security were left with the irate Alpha lawyer. Even Katra filed in with us, as she likely didn't want to stick around and suffer at the hands of Gashin if she stayed around longer, especially after what he said next.

"Fuck you! If I or any of my family get my hands on you people, you'll be certain that we'll wring your necks until your head pops off!" Gashin went full bore on hurling anger and vitriol our way, likely not worried about how bad he was going to be seen as he was getting arrested anyway. "But not after all of your stupid Beta and Omega get thrown to the wolves! One Alpha wanting to pay you for sex will be least of your goddamn worries when we're through with you!!"

The problems didn't necessarily end there, as the moment we opened the doors to leave did we run into the family of the Alpha who had been killed, who had waited angrily outside the court room the moment they had been kicked out. With the security inside still dealing with Gashin, we were forced to deal with the half circle of family preventing us from leaving the building.

"Hey Katra, come here!" One of the younger ones in the family, around the same age as what Gashin or Tadashi would have been, angrily called her out of the lot of us, obviously recognising her from the nightclub. Katra clearly hesitated, already telling that there was going to be trouble the moment she stepped out. Before she could make a move either way, I wrapped my arm around hers to keep her close to me, which made that same younger Alpha send me an angry glare. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

"We're hiring her" Matthias calmly lied for me, as he could no doubt tell how likely Katra was to be mistreated if she stayed behind. "After all, her previous employer is dead, so she needs a new job"

"Fuck you, you-

That same Alpha shut himself up sharply once Matthias gently held open the front of his jacket, showing that he had a gun hidden on his right side. He wasn't the only one, as I knew well from watching Paul and Tanner get dressed that each person there (Minus us people on the defence and Blaire) had a weapon concealed on themselves somewhere. Guns were technically outlawed on Alfu, except for registered military companies and the army, so that meant that the Alpha family couldn't have any... Or at the very least, shouldn't have any.

"Now, I'm going to ask you this once" Matthias allowed that dark look in his eyes to return, but didn't do anything to bring it back again, obviously allowing his dangerous side to frighten the family away from even thinking about harming us. "Is there a problem?"

They seemed to consider the situation for a bit, obviously a bit longer than most people as Alpha usually found it harder to think past their testosterone, but they eventually seemed to make the correct choice. The half circle of people instead became two groups on either side of us, and we took that chance the moment he had it to leave.

"Have a lovely day now" Jfred almost evilly gave them a condescending wave as we left them there, but I honestly wasn't all that concerned with being polite to them after how they had treated us.

With a spring in our step, and a new person to join us at the company under some strange circumstances, we quite gladly left the lot of them in our dust.

 

**End of record one- Legalities**


	19. Psychologist report #00001

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of my information about the mental health in this chapter is second hand, either from wikipedia or from word of mouth from others who have experienced it first or second hand. Please do not assume that my story is the absolute truth for everyone

**"Greetings. This log is made in an attempt to provide psychologist assistance to the members of our company and to act as training for any future psychologist that may wish to learn by some old cases. We have only recorded audio so as to give our employees some discretion as to their lives, per orders from my new boss. Should these files become confidential, then disregard these logs for training purposes. The following files will only mention first names of people, in order to keep their identity hidden. My name is Blaire, and I will be acting as the psychologist for my fellow employees until further notice"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Oh, of course. My name is Mila, I'm an Omega and I was hired at first to be an undercover agent, but after an incident I have been transferred to the role of financier"**

**"I see. Tell me about this incident"**

**"Is that for the tape? Because you already know what happened in the incident"**

**"It isn't entirely meant for the tape, it was more towards asking you of how you had experienced this last week. It seemed to have affected you badly"**

**"I burst into tears more times in the last week than I have ever done... Not even after my mother had died, as at least back then we had the opportunity to console ourselves by knowing it was coming for a long time"**

**"You don't often mention your mother"**

**"She died when I was very little... As much as it is a bit sad to mention it, I don't know as much about her as I would have liked"**

**"That's a shame. What about your father?"**

**"He raised me the best he could while he also worked for the military. When I was very little I used to complain about how he liked the big engines in the army more than me, but I've become really proud of him as I was growing up"**

**"Is he available to help you cope with recent stress?"**

**"...He died last year"**

**"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise"**

**"It's fine, that probably came as a shock. It did to me anyway at the time"**

**"Do you mind telling me how he died?"**

**"There was a fire at a siege tank factory, and my dad being the reckless hero he was, charged in to save the younger pilots because he was getting quite old himself. He managed to save about four younger pilots before they think that he succumbed to the effects of smoke inhalation... I'm still proud of him for saving others"**

**"Do you miss him?"**

**"More than anything else"**

**"That's good to hear. Forgive me for harking back to an earlier topic, but would you say that you have a good relationship with Alpha?"**

**"Alpha? Like, all of them in general? I mean, Jfred and Bryan are super nice"**

**"But if you were to encounter a random Alpha down the street from you, would you treat them as politely as you would an Omega?"**

**"...I guess it might be classist to say so, but I think after the incident I've experienced, they would have to prove they were good before I would trust them. God, that sounds so bad to say"**

**"Your emotions are your own, you're allowed to feel them as they are"**

**"Can I ask why you asked me that question? It just doesn't sound like something that you'd ask me Blaire"**

**"It was a mandatory question that Matthias wanted me to ask everyone"**

**"That seems oddly specific"**

**"I assume it is... I think the question might have to do with everyone's weird responses to the Alpha who had attacked you"**

**"That everyone wasn't actually surprised by it?"**

**"Something like that. But never mind, we shouldn't be discussing this right now"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Bobby, Beta, and I work for the company as their requisitions manager"**

**"That was quite short and snappy. Have you had appointments with a psychologist before?"**

**"Huh? Oh! No, sorry, I'm just used to responding sharply to questions like that. Bryan and Matthias instilled that into me when I began training here"**

**"They did? Alright, interesting to note. How have you been since the incident?"**

**"It might sound weird, but I often find myself wanting to check on Mila even though I know she's safe in the company building... Did she already have her appointment before me? Did she mention if she was going to move out to another apartment?"**

**"I'm not at liberty to say what she had said to me. I'm only going to breach that contract if I feel like someone's life is in danger"**

**"...Of course, my bad"**

**"However I do have to mention, you and a number of others seem to have grown closer to her since the incident. Are the six of you creating a support system with each other?"**

**"Something like that, yes"**

**"That does make sense for you, Connor, Gunner and Mila, as the four of you had experienced the incident with each other. However, Paul and Tanner seem to also be quite close to the four of you as well, despite the two of them being in a different branch of the company"**

**"We were friends before this incident too. Paul and Tanner do military jobs for the company, but they're still just as good friends with the rest of us who stay at the company"**

**"Forgive me for saying, but you seem defensive about this subject"**

**"...I just don't understand the sudden third degree on being friends with Paul and Tanner"**

**"Of course. One more question before we wrap up here, what is your relationship with Alpha?"**

**"Ah... They're not exactly the friendliest class, are they?"**

**"Is that so?"**

**"They're always... So eager to show that they're better than the rest of us, which just seems weird to me. They can throw tanks like a javelin, why would they feel the need to be superior?"**

**"Who knows"**

**"Geez, you can say that again"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Connor, Beta, and I work as the company's blacksmith. Or main equipment maker, if you want to be fancy"**

**"How have you been since the incident Connor?"**

**"Honestly, not great. The police seized half of my tools that I took to Mila's apartment, and they're still refusing to give them back even after the court case has been settled"**

**"I was more referring to emotional stress"**

**"You're not seriously expecting an answer that isn't something close to 'bad', are you?"**

**"Have you experienced some anger after everything is over?"**

**"Let's just say that if I was forced to choose between shooting myself in the head and being allies with Tadashi or Gashin, you'd find my bullet ridden body somewhere"**

**"Do you have an outlet for your anger right now?"**

**"I use Tanner's punching bag from time to time, and beating things into shape in my forge is a surprising good way to relax"**

**"Good! That's good. One final question, what would you say about Alpha?"**

**"I don't like them"**

**"Oh?"**

**"They're so violent! Anytime something doesn't go their way, they try to solve it with fists first and damn anyone who gets in their way! Honestly, if I didn't know Bryan and Jfred pretty well by now, I'd almost assume that _all_ Alpha are like that"**

**"That's quite a strong statement"**

**"Well, it's not like they're really doing their best to beat that stereotype, are they?"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Gunner, Beta, and I'm the main fitness coordinator for this company"**

**"Thank you. Now, it says in your file that you have been to a psychologist when you were younger?"**

**"Yeah, I got recommended to one after... After an Alpha had killed my friend back in high school"**

**"You were affected quite badly by it, I assume?"**

**"...I was the one who found his body"**

**"I'm sorry, that must have been horrible"**

**"Honestly? The worst part was that I didn't even recognise that it was him when I found him. The corpse was completely unrecognisable, and when I got told by the police who it was... I'm sorry, but I want to stop talking about this now"**

**"The file states that your former psychologist didn't manage to help you through the time back then, that you had run out of appointments before they got anywhere"**

**"Please... I just really don't want to talk about this. I don't want the images to come back..."**

**"Of course, my apologies, I'll try to keep this brief so that you can destress with someone you trust soon. One final question however, as this is a mandatory one that Matthias wanted me to ask you, how is your relationship with Alpha?"**

**"I nearly punched Jfred in the face the first day I met him at this company when I figured out his class type. It was a mistake at the time, as it was the Beta heat week and I had freaked out, but I think that should answer your question pretty well"**

**"You appear to get along with Alpha pretty well in normal situations"**

**"I'm very good at acting"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Tanner, Beta, I'm the second in command for the company, as well as the leader for the military protocol missions"**

**"Quite a high title indeed. Do you sometimes feel stressed by your position?"**

**"...Sometimes, yes. I do occasionally find myself wishing I was back in the carefree position that I had before, but I also understand that it is necessary for the company to thrive"**

**"Thank you for your honesty, it's quite refreshing to hear it. Tell me, how has the recent incident with the court case affected you?"**

**"Well, in terms of emotions it's a bit much to get into in one go. But in other terms, Matthias has given me a warning for my behaviour"**

**"What did he say?"**

**"That I was acting unprofessionally at the court trial. Not the part where I teased the lady from the prosecution to attack, but the part where I tried to storm to the front to comfort Mila"**

**"You were emotional, that's normal for the situation"**

**"Not according to Matt it isn't, he told me off for nearly 'derailing his plan for the defence'. I can understand some of it, I really can! But he's expecting me to sit by while she sobs on the witness stand?"**

**"Speaking of that, may I ask what your relationship with her is?"**

**"We - Uh... We're friends, and I felt it was partially my fault for what happened to her"**

**"Why do you feel that way?"**

**"I had heard through the information network here at work that the nightclub had been reported as shifty. I hadn't mentioned anything at the time when Matthias sent them there, and I also froze internally when Connor, Bobby and Gunner had stormed out to go and help her"**

**"'Freeze' is quite a common reaction in the flight or fight reaction Tanner, and it is often the first one to be flipped on when we don't know everything about a situation"**

**"...I still feel like I could have helped out in the Alpha situation"**

**"Speaking of Alpha, what would you say is your relationship with them?"**

**"Quite bad. Beyond one of my cousins being an Alpha, along with Bryan and Jfred here at the company, I can't think of any good Alpha that I've met"**

**"Well, that's certainly a bad track record"**

**"I wish it was better, but I can't lie about it"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Paul, Beta, I'm the pilot for the company, along with several other odd jobs"**

**"Your file says you used to be in the army?"**

**"For a very short while, I assure you. No toxic masculinity here, no siree!"**

**"Why did you leave?"**

**"You want the polite option where I pretend to ignore your question, or the honest answer?"**

**"I usually desire honesty, I find it to be the best policy"**

**"Blunt version was that I walked in on a group of Alpha in the army about to sexually assault an Omega that had joined two days prior. He managed to sneak away while I was busy talking to the Alpha there, and they weren't too happy with me. They threatened to do the same to me because I was the only one present, and I kicked one of them in the nether regions because of it"**

**"And I assume you faced problems because of it?"**

**"Oh boy, did I ever! Turns out the one I had hit where the sun don't shine was an officer of high ranking, and he was intent on getting me dishonourably discharged or as one of his "direct officers", which meant that he would have access to me at anytime, anywhere. My troop leader at the time was merciful for me, and offered an option for me to get honourably discharged because of how little time I had spent in the troop. And trust me, I didn't want to stick around in an army that placed the hurt feelings of an angry Alpha over the safety of the other soldiers"**

**"And you ended up working for Matthias"**

**"Yeah, he actually was there when I got discharged. Saw me getting booed and harassed by the soldiers still there, because my name had spread around as a troublemaker, and he seemed interested in me because of it. I think he hired me on the spot just to piss off the other soldiers that he had come to possibly hire... I owe him a lot"**

**"So, guessing from that description of your former job, your relationship with Alpha is quite strained?"**

**"Yup. Time has told me that with Alpha, I unfortunately have to assume the worst until I have proof otherwise"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Name's Katra, I'm a super proud Beta and I've just recently gotten hired as an undercover agent for Matthias and co. It's so quickly after I lost my old job too, it's a new record!"**

**"And how did you think the incident went?"**

**"Oh it was just horrible! I feel so bad for poor Mila, the darling. I worked for Tadashi, but if I had known that he was going to pursue her so... Who knows, maybe I should have said something?"**

**"You couldn't have known that he was going to do that"**

**"But that's the thing! I did know he was the kind to do that, I was just... Agh, I was so honestly terrified that he would go after me if I tried to talk him out of it"**

**"I'm sure Mila isn't mad at you over it, as much as she didn't like what happened. The last thing she would want is for you to blame yourself, as then the grief would spread over everyone"**

**"If you think she'd be alright with it, then I suppose I really should try to let that go, shouldn't I?"**

**"But I do have to know, how has it affected you?"**

**"If I may be frank honey, I don't think it has affected me all that much. Beyond being a bit sad for the poor darlings involved, I didn't have much stake in it"**

**"It caused you to lose your job"**

**"A horrid job! Honestly, petting that man's head was about as bad as the time I had worked for a strip club!"**

**"And you don't feel displaced here at the company so far?"**

**"...Well, I do have to admit that there is something. Everyone's been perfectly welcoming except for the three guys and those other two men who hang around them lately"**

**"Have they been rude to you?"**

**"Oh no, not rude, they just seem very hesitant to be my friend. Who knows, maybe they think that I supported Tadashi more than I actually did?"**

**"Perhaps telling them that will help?"**

**"You know, maybe it will! Thanks honey!"**

**"It's Blaire, and you're welcome"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Matthias, Beta, and I'm the chief executive officer of the company"**

**"Your file states that you've had regular appointments with a therapist?"**

**"That's correct"**

**"If I may be frank Matthias, why are you seeing me for therapy and psychology if you have your own therapist?"**

**"My current therapist is on holiday, and it's lately becoming harder to see her with the sudden rise in cases for her. I figured it might be prudent to visit you for a session and see how we mesh, as then it would much easier for me to come see you rather than her"**

**"Quite logical, I have to admit. Alright then, might you tell me why you we were seeing a therapist in the first place?"**

**"I was diagnosed and was subsequently being treated for a number of mental health conditions. I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and I also have been seeing anger management courses to handle some... Darker thoughts that occasionally surface"**

**"I see. What symptoms did you suffer from with your PTSD?"**

**"I didn't suffer the nightmares, but I used to have regular harrowing flashbacks and it aggravated my anger at times. They don't happen as much anymore, my previous therapist helped with that a tremendous amount. But... I am getting worried about my anger management"**

**"And why is that?"**

**"I've been regressing to a former level of anger resurfacing from my past. See, a week ago I had gone for nearly a whole year without an angry mood swing, but in the last week I've had... Oh god, about five or six of them?"**

**"What do you think is the cause for it suddenly reappearing? A trigger, perhaps?"**

**"It began when I had gotten called in by Tanner about the fact Mila had been attacked by someone, specifically when I arrived to the scene to see the audacity of that... Damn police officer!"**

**"Is this another one of your swings?"**

**"I- ...Shoot. Yes, I'm so sorry you had to see that"**

**"You seem to acquire a malicious look in your eyes when you slip into one of those. Tell me, do you know if that is a normal thing?"**

**"I've been told that it is"**

**"By your regular psychologist?'**

**"By family. Not my wife and daughter, thank god for that, but Bryan and Jfred see it. They recognise it because they were there with me during the stressful time in my past"**

**"If I may be so bold, I think your old anger might be resurfacing at the classism and prejudice your workers were experiencing. I was present for a number of them, and they only seemed to come in response to something rude being asked or suggested of to Mila or her three compatriots. Even now, your anger was mainly focused on the rudeness of the police officer, and nothing else from what I could notice"**

**"You don't need to sugar-coat it you know"**

**"I am well aware. I do not sugar-coat things Matthias, I simply say as I see them. And if I truly was thinking bad of you, then you simply wouldn't hear anything from me"**

**"...Okay. I really hope you're right Blaire"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"Bryan, Alpha, and I act as the main bodyguard to Matthias, our CEO. Beyond that, I assist with construction style requests from clients"**

**"Bodyguard, huh. Alright Bryan, it says you have seen a therapist a couple of times but gave up after the third appointment?"**

**"That's right. I tried it out, but at the third appointment my therapist was polite enough to inform me that there likely wasn't anything he could do for me, so I stopped going"**

**"And what was it that he couldn't help you with?"**

**"I suffer from night terrors, also known as sleep terrors. Unfortunately for me, it's usually something that kids get rather than adults, and they generally grow out of it as they get older"**

**"Have you always suffered from this condition?"**

**"No, I haven't. I only started to experience them around... Two years ago by now? But my therapist didn't know how to treat my condition beyond trying to get me to sleep more, which only worsened the effects because I would then stress about getting to sleep on time"**

**"You'd say it is because of stress?"**

**"It's the only logical thing I can think of. It's not common, but some adults do suffer from night terrors after stressful events, and two years ago was certainly one of those times"**

**"Would this stressful time two years ago happen to be in conjunction with Matthias' description of a stressful time?"**

**"It would. I'd almost guarantee it was the same time as each other"**

**"And these night terrors, what happens during them?"**

**"I usually end up having these horrific looking nightmares a couple of hours into sleep, and they're... They're very vivid, corpses rising from the dead and dragging me into a grave, friends head slowly melting until they're unrecognizable. All the while I'm having that; I'll be thrashing and having a fit in the bed next to my wife. My legs and arms luckily never punch someone, but it always wakes her and the kids up when I'm having another episode"**

**"Do you ever injure yourself? I have heard of some adults suffering from night terrors getting out of bed in a sleep-like trance and running out into the street"**

**"Oh no, I don't go that far. The worst I do to myself is falling out of bed onto the floor, which might give me a bruise or two. It did actually scare the living daylights out of my wife the first night it happened though, because no matter what she tried I wouldn't wake up. Imagine my surprise when I wake up to find several slaps to my cheeks, I've been hit with an electric fly swatter, I'm literally soaked in water and I don't remember a single second of it! She was very apologetic for hitting me, but it was a lot more harrowing for her than it was for me"**

**"Do you ever say anything while you're asleep?"**

**"Sarah often says that it's mostly screaming, but I sometimes do mumble a name of a family member or co-worker before I start having a full blown fit. Even some old co-workers too..."**

**"I do have to admit, I don't have much experience with this sort of mental disorder, but I'll see what I can do to help you"**

**"Thank you, it's all I can ask of you. It'll give my wife that much more comfort when she sleeps"**

* * *

**"Please state your first name, class and job title for the tape please"**

**"I'm Joey or Joseph, whichever you really prefer, but you can call me sexy if you really want to"**

**"...You didn't answer half of my requests Jfred. That, and I'm not sure you understand the point of this appointment"**

**"Now where did you get that impression from?"**

**"Winking suggestively and asking me to call you something flirtatious is not generally done in a psychologist appointment. Now, please repeat your first name, your class and job title"**

**"Nah, don't feel like it"**

**"Jfred, please-**

**"I thought I asked you to call me Joey or Joseph! Besides, you don't think I see what this whole psychologist appointment was set up just so that Matthias can worry more about us? Dude already worries about everyone as it is, and he's probably going to listen to these tapes after they're recorded"**

**"I don't think he'd do such a thing"**

**"You don't know my brother like I do. I know he's going to run himself into the ground with worry if he doesn't have some relief, so I'll deal with my own issues in my spare time, thank you very much. If you want to talk to me without the recording equipment, come find me when I'm alone"**

**"Jfred, please sit down, we're not done! JFRED!"**

* * *

**"That is the end of the first psychologist report. There are a bunch of other tapes recorded, but I have sorted these individuals into a group as they're the most likely to need further treatment. So far everyone seems to be dealing with the incident in different methods from each other, but the worst reaction to these appointments has been Jfred, understandably because he was the only one to storm out of his session. I'll be reporting more when there is further information available. Blaire signing off"**


	20. Ready for it?

**Record two- Search**

 

 ****It had been about three days since the court case, and things had settled down at the company. Everyone returned to their normal tasks, and it was almost as if nothing had ever happened. The only difference I could notice was that I was now living at the company building like the other guys did instead of an apartment, and my job description had changed.

I had asked Matthias not long after I had gotten back if I could change my job from undercover agent to my original one of financier because of what had happened, which he was more than happy to give it to me. In my place, Katra took on the role of undercover agent, mainly because she was very good at talking someone's ear off and appearing like a typical person like I could. In fact, that's exactly what we had been talking about one day at lunch.

"And let me tell you honey, his face was exactly like this!" Katra excitedly told me and Blaire sitting around the table with her, putting on an obviously exaggerated face to imitate the person she had busted for selling a kind of drug in their store, which I couldn't help but laugh at. It was her third mission, her talent working like a charm to make her blend into the background. "But honestly, I'm really surprised none of the people who claim to be "the baddest bitches in town", could notice little old me in the background"

"I'd say it's down to your talent" Blaire gave her professional opinion on it, delicately eating her sushi that was being served for lunch that day. I couldn't even hold the chopsticks right when they had handed me them, and she had shown me how to at least not drop everything, but she still was making it look like she had been born with the ability to handle them. "Your talent acts as a thing that lets you slip into the background, correct?"

"Yup! I call it my little wallflower effect!" Katra cheerily told us, a bit messily picking up her own sushi but managing to get it in her mouth without smudging her milky pink lipstick. Before she could get started on another story however, her eye got caught on someone entering the break room. "Oooh, hottie alert!"

Blaire just rolled her eyes in a joking manner as my head immediately swivelled around to see who she was referring to, but there was only one person entering the room at the time. Tanner was waltzing in at the time, obviously looking for someone in particular, as his eyes were busy scanning over each individual table before he paused at ours for a second. Seeing that I was looking at him, he smiled softly at me with a slight chin tilt in greeting, before he walked off to another table to talk to the people there.

Katra was giggling by the time I had turned back around, while Blaire was politely just smiling at her food. I didn't think they got the full understanding of the smile Tanner had sent my way, but it was clear that they thought the interaction was cute between me and him just then.

"I don't suppose there's any way you can put in a good word with him for me?" Katra teasingly asked me with a scandalous wink to go with it, knowing at least that me and Tanner had a good relationship between us. But even though I supposed that I could have done that for her, that was going to be an awkward discussion no matter how I brought it. "Mama certainly likes her men tall, dark and handsome"

"He isn't dark though" I snorted a little in laughter, still finding it all a little bit silly and carefree talking about it.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Matthias has a strict policy against people being in relationships with each other" Blaire came to my rescue, although likely without realising it. Katra blew a raspberry in what obviously seemed to be disapproval, which I laughed at again. It was so fun being with the both of them, ranging from Blaire's stoic calm exterior to Katra's silly outgoing style... I wonder which one people would describe me more as? "Otherwise you'd be seeing me going after someone here as well"

"That's a little surprising to hear from you" I admitted, Katra nodding her head in agreement which just made her hair and long dangly earrings bounce up and down again. Blaire raised an eyebrow at us in a manner that was almost competitively challenging us to state why we were surprised to hear that, but it was done in a friendly enough manner so that I felt comfortable asking her further about it. "Who would you be going after?"

Blaire didn't necessarily answer us in a verbal sense, sipping her green tea as she turned gently in her seat to hone in on one particular person sitting at a table on his own. He wasn't necessarily eating at his table, just sleeping in his seat with his legs propped on the table and his grey baseball cap lowered over his face to block out the light.

"...You like Jfred?" I asked her, and the only answer I got back was a enigmatic smile from her as she shifted back to looking at us instead. Assuming that was a yes, I hummed softly as I thought over why she would be interested in him. Perhaps something as simple as the idea that opposites attracted?

"I can't figure him out, oddly enough" Blaire decided to explain before me or Katra could even ask her for her reasoning, occasionally shifting a little so that she could peek at him out of her peripheral vision. He hadn't shifted, oddly enough, as though he was using his lunch break to sleep rather than actually eat like everyone else. The only reason I could think of for why he was doing that was if he was part of the night shift for our company, but I wasn't certain. "I can read everyone else like a book, but he's... An anomaly, something completely foreign in this company. If nothing else, that curiosity would probably make me go for him, plus he seemed to have dropped some hints that he was into me as well"

"Wouldn't his brother be, like, super mad if he found out that he was dropping spicy hints your way?" Katra asked a valid question, to which Blaire just shrugged her shoulders for once.

"Another thing I don't know about him" Blaire had to admit that she didn't know his reasoning behind that, looking just a little frustrated with how mysterious he was. "Who knows, maybe he was just doing it to annoy his older brother?"

"...I don't know, I don't think he's actually malicious to people" I felt I had to defend him a little as he wasn't awake or aware enough to counter the comments coming his way. Blaire nodded her head, obviously thinking along the same lines as me, but her eyes shifted over to the doors of the break room a moment later.

"Ooh, hottie number two! Not as cute as Tanner mind you, but I don't think there's many that can reach his level for me" Katra whispered to us again, and I turned around in my seat just early enough to see Bobby head over to us. "How scandalous, he's coming here!"

"Not really, he works closely with Mila" Blaire countered Katra's joke smoothly, the both of them falling silent just in time so that Bobby couldn't hear what we were talking about, him just approaching with his usual soft simper.

"Ladies, sorry to interrupt" He apologised for taking up our time, despite the fact that nobody was talking by the time he had showed up. Whatever he had come for was obviously not top secret, as he didn't usher me to follow him away, instead just lowering his stack of papers onto the table and coming to sit directly next to me. "Mila, we kind of need to discuss this employer here"

"Ah, the Discus Giga company" I knew likely what he was going to be referring to, and it was exactly the right one when he pointed to their name on our bank records. They were our new ammo manufacturers, as we had been swindled and messed about with enough at the previous one that we had to change. Bobby, with his hands full trying to get all of our other companies in order, had enlisted me for help again (It was the millionth time I had helped him out, which honestly made me think that Matthias' joke about me being their new assistant requisitions manager wasn't that far off from the truth). This new company had good credentials, but the problem likely came down to the ammo we were getting. "Matthias doesn't like the reclaimed bullets, does he?"

"I haven't told him yet, but I can't imagine he would, no" Bobby sighed softly, as he knew himself the dangers of reclaimed bullets. They essentially were bullets that had already been fired once, but the shells and casings were kept so that they could be refilled with gun powder and then be resealed before they could be fired once again. However, there always was the danger that the resealing would go wrong and misfire the bullet, which could either result in a broken gun, a missing eye or worse. "I know it's a third of the price, but it's dangerous to use them"

"They assured me that they check each bullet by hand after they're made. There's a specific person at their premises that is literally just paid to make sure they all work correctly, as they know how much trouble they can be in if their bullet hurts someone" I stuck to my decision of using them, as there was no way we were going to survive financially if we took the new bullets from the other companies that were available. Bobby sighed softly, obviously still not trusting them (Also because he had to be the one to tell Matthias about it, which was never a fun thing), so I jumped onto the last resort. "Look, Paul and Tanner are going on a smaller mission tomorrow, right? Ask them to use the bullets in their old guns, and I promise you that they'll all work. The older guns are harder to load anyway, which means there is less chance of the bullet even being able to harm them"

"...Alright, but you have to be the one to tell them and Matt" Bobby decided to trust me on my decision, as I had yet to actually let him down in my judgement so far with our newer suppliers. He soon noticed that Tanner was still hanging about in the break room, so that helped solve at least one of them. "There's Tanner now even, you and me might be able to tell him and then-

"Ooh ooh! Let me do it!" Katra excitedly interjected before Bobby could finish his sentence, but by then we had all gotten used to her doing that now and then. Despite the fact that her shouting was loud enough for some tables to hear her, Tanner somehow seemed to be one of the few that didn't catch it. "Just let me go tell him the news, and I promise I'll be grateful to you forever!"

On the one hand I found myself resisting the idea of letting her go tell him because I had wanted to myself... But when I thought about it, I would have been fine with Blaire doing it but not Katra. I could only conclude that it was because I was a bit hesitant for her to become more infatuated with him, and him possibly doing the same in return. The time I took to think it over did me a world of good however, as I was able to safely put aside those feelings of jealousy in place of love for him. If he truly ended up changing his mind to liking her after she spent more time with him, then that'd be his choice to make, and not mine.

"Sure you can" I eventually told her with a smile, watching as her eyes lit up with glee at the permission I gave. Bobby seemed a bit confused on my decision, but he soon shrugged his shoulders and let it be with a smile. "I need to go find Paul anyway, so it's perfect if you go tell Tanner"

"Alright!" She happily cheered to herself about her task now, standing up and clicking her silver stiletto heels together the best she could as she saluted me. "Wish me luck gals and guy, I'm going in!"

Like the flip of a switch, she seemed to be able to turn on her wallflower effect, almost slinking away like a silver fox chasing after her prey. The only things we could really focus on after that was the clicking of her heels against the floor and the jangling of her earrings before she mysteriously seemed to reappear in full clarity right next to Tanner's shoulder, and she tapped him softly on the shoulder. He didn't seem that surprised to see her however, as though he had simply seen her out of the corner of his eye and vaguely kept an eye on her.

"I'd better get to work then" I told Blaire, who likely still had some more time before she had to return to the front desk of the company, but I stood up at the same time as Bobby to leave and handle the new tasks I needed to do for him. Blaire gave the both of us a wave as we left, and Katra was completely distracted by Tanner (And he by her, interestingly enough) so we had the time to slink out of the break room. Our eyes each individually looked down and up the hallways we were traversing down, and once we decided that it was as empty as we thought did we come together, Bobby gently bringing his arm around my shoulder and my head laid on his shoulder. "It's so busy lately"

"Things have certainly been ramping up, huh? It feels like we have no time to relax and just be with each other" Bobby mumbled softly into the top of my head, sneaking a gentle kiss into the hair there which made my heart sing. "But I suppose I can't really complain about that, as you work a lot with me lately, while the others are in other departments from us... It's a good thing we still have the Romeo wing"

Ah, the infamous Romeo wing. After the incident, Matthias of course had planned to make arrangements to move me to a more female oriented wing partly because of his policy and because of the incident. But Paul managed to perfectly counter both reasons at the time, explaining that separating us based on gender wouldn't really work if you took into account gay people who were attracted to their own gender anyway, and the fact that the five of them were my main support for mental health after Tadashi and his horrible family. In the end, due to funny circumstances that made Kevin and Marvin return home for a while to better take care of their family, as well as Matthias retracting either idea to move me... It was just the six of us there. A little bit of respite and relaxation at the end of the day with the lot of us before the next day cycle came around. It wasn't much, but it was ours.

"You want to come with me to find Paul?" I asked him as I gently brought my head away from his shoulder, giving his cheek a gentle kiss before we pretended that we had done nothing but walk next to each other. There was of course the small chance that someone was suddenly going to round a corner, and seeing the both of us like that would have raised questions that we wanted to avoid.

"Sorry, I really need to go and organise a video conference with our new supplier of health kits and instant health vials. Matt wants to stock up on them for a really big mission" Bobby apologised, looking honestly sorry for the fact he was going to do something different. I however, found myself stuck on the last part of his explanation, and I found myself suddenly biting my tongue to stop myself from asking if their "big mission" was the one happening in eighteen years’ time that could kill them all. But of course, if I did ask him about that, he of course would want to know who on Alfu had told me that, which would get Paul in trouble... So mild surprise was the best emotion I could plaster on my face to cover up my thoughts. "I'll tell you all about it when I see you tonight in the Romeo wing"

With that he split off from me down another hallway, which left me with a slight tang of a bitter feeling in my gut. He mentioned that he would tell me all about it, yet he was still hiding the biggest secret from me in the form of the thing happening in eighteen years’ time...

But then again, I supposed it was a bit unfair to put that blame entirely on him. Paul had taken a big risk to tell me about it himself, and he hadn't even told me everything there was to know! So it wasn't really right to blame the other four for the fact they were sticking to the rules of secrecy.

Speaking of Paul, I entered the garage to find him and was rewarded by him standing next to his vulture, clearly still in the process of fiddling around with it. As the doors closed to the garage, he did lift his eyes for a moment to see who had entered, and looked quite pleased to see that it was me.

"Making sure that I'm not Gunner or Tanner? They're both still hounding you to get on that training program" I teased him as I closed the distance between us, and his cheeky smirk told me that he had indeed checked for that reason. Right before I got to him did he push a button on the inside of his control panel, which caused the vulture to shift and extend to a two seater rather than the single seater it was made into. "What are you working on?"

"Ah, the transformation sequence feels a little sticky. If I'm in a situation where I need to change from two to one, or the other way around, then I really need it to do it fast without it taking a long time" He began to absentmindedly talk about his vulture, him obviously being proud of the little ship he had constructed from the parts of a speeder bike. It was endearing to hear him talk like that, which just made me circle my arms around his chest and move to kiss him. He knew well that I had a habit of doing that after I wrapped my arms around his chest, so he turned his head just in time to smooch me in a caring manner before he grinned, clearly over the moon with both his ship and me. "What can I do for you? Not saying that you didn't come here just to see me, but Matt would probably hound you if he found out you were paying me visits without a good reason"

"Actually, I did come here just to see you" I couldn't help but tease him again, loving the feigned look of surprise on his face. Of course, I wasn't there exactly just to kiss and snuggle with him, which was likely what  _he_ had been implying with that sentence of his. "I needed to tell you and Tanner about our new line of ammo before you went on your mission tomorrow. We've gotten some reclaimed bullets for a much cheaper price, but Bobby and likely Matthias, don't trust it"

"Honestly, my experience with reclaimed bullets is alright. Even shoddy companies have a very low chance of something going wrong with them" Paul seemed perfectly fine with the news, which was a relief. However, it seemed like I was not the only one looking for the other out of the two of us, as he dug around in his pocket before handing me something. "Here, I wanted to give you this a while ago, but you or I were always busy until now"

He had handed me a little electronic device, looking very similar in shape to what I recognised as a personal alarm. It was camouflaged smartly with a pretty design however, looking closer to a bracelet with a ladybug motif on it. There was an extra little strap that didn't belong on the bracelet however, and I tugged on it experimentally. It was quite hard to pull out, as it was designed to not just be randomly pulled out by just anyone, but once it did come loose there was absolutely no noise from the alarm itself. Instead, I heard a very loud beeping noise from Paul's GPS device, both the one clipped onto his belt and the one in his vulture both pinged a warning that the 'ladybug was in need of help', as well as providing an exact location on where I was at the time.

"I know it might be going a little overboard, but... I thought maybe it would help you relax, knowing that you have a way of contacting me no matter where you are" Paul explained in a hopeful manner, obviously doing it out of a place of concern and love rather than anything possessive. It was endlessly kind of him to do so, and I already slipped it around and fixed it around my left wrist with a shy smile. "I hope you like it"

"I love it" I stood on tiptoe as I said that to be able to reach his forehead, pressing a gentle kiss there as my thanks.

Right as I did that, we heard the garage doors open at the other side of the room, which made both me and him separate hurriedly and pretend we were just standing around.

"It's just me" Connor quickly informed us to quell our worries about it being someone else, which made Paul's shoulders drop in an obviously thankful manner. He was not dressed in his usual forge attire despite it being the middle of the day cycle, but I paid no mind to it once he was near me, and he allowed himself the liberty of gently holding my hand while he was delivering his news. "Matt wants us to gather in the meeting room, says that we've got a really important meeting to have"

"I dare you to hold her hand as long as you can before we get there" Paul dared Connor with an impish grin on his face as we set off, but Connor shook his head at the idea with his own coy smile. Despite not wanting to go along with his dare, he did hold my hand for a little while before we had even gotten to the meeting room.

The meeting room was as dark as it had been the first time I had walked in, with only the light blue of the screen behind Matthias to illuminate him in the closed room. I was just about to split to my side of the room (Which was in the same quadrant to the right as Bobby, Kevin and Marvin), when I got jumped by someone who had been waiting in the shadows for me.

"Sweaty hug time!"

I let out a shriek as Kevin ambushed me from around the door, the vastly taller Omega swaddling me in a hug. True to his description, he indeed was sweaty from the work he likely had been doing to bring in crates and equipment from trucks and vans, but I couldn't help but let out a giggle when he started to try and twirl me around him as well. A gentle pinch to the inside of his arm was all I needed to do, and soon he let me go with his own comparably girly scream.

"Ow! No fair, no pinching!" Kevin pouted childishly, but was hesitant to try his surprise hug again, as much as my daring look was likely making him want to. Everyone in the room seemed to find it at least a little bit funny by how squeamish Kevin was being about the pinch, which made the room devolve into a chorus of chuckles and uproarious laughter as it had been the first time I waltzed in there. Marvin was just doing his best to drag his brother to his seat nearby, which would have been on the other side of where I was going to sit, when Matthias clapped his hands loudly to bring everyone back to attention.

"Alright people, hurry it up a little!" He barked an order somewhat sounding like it was serious, but you could hear the hint of laughter in the end of his sentence just like his brothers (Jfred and Bryan respectively) looked like they were going to devolve into a fit of laughter themselves. "I'm serious, I don't plan to wait for the next century for you guys to be ready!"

As much as the atmosphere was light hearted, people did shuffle faster to their seats than before, and I finally planted myself firmly in the seat in between Bobby and Kevin. I seemed to be one of the last ones, as Matthias looked around sharply to notice that everyone he had called for was there. And so, the meeting started.


	21. Man with a mission

The electronic display behind Matthias finally seemed to do something else rather than shine a bright blue light, instead showing four things on a bullet point list that Matthias wanted to discuss. One of them clearly seemed to be Tanner and Paul's mission the following day, another was talking about some training camp and of course there was Katra's new assignment to investigate a logging company, but the strangest had to be the last one which was only labelled as 'the sword in the stone'. The name vaguely sounded familiar like a really old holofilm, but I didn't know much more about what that could mean.

"So, we're going to be shutting down the company for around three days, simply because of the amount of people that are going to be away" Matthias dove right into the meeting, his words surprising some of the workers around the circle. It didn't surprise me that much, as Gunner had mentioned a day or so ago that we didn't actually have as many people in the company who could fight that well. Jfred, Bryan, Matthias, Gunner, Paul and Tanner were the only ones formally recognised as trained soldiers within the company. Kevin and Marvin weren't strong enough, me, Katra and Blaire weren't hired under that capability and we had zero training, Bobby still was without a talent, Connor was deemed to not be in shape enough and everyone else in the company had said that they didn't want to fight (And Matthias wasn't about to force them). "Paul and Tanner are going to be away for a day or two for the Michela family, who need their help again handling a bunch of wolfkin"

"Again? I thought we got rid of all of them the last time" Tanner sighed, the name of the family and the creatures they were going to be hunting sounding familiar to him. Matthias just gave him a stern look that said that it wasn't a negotiable thing, which made Tanner gently rub his face in a tired motion before sitting up straight and accepting their mission. "Yes boss"

"This training camp is going to be used by Bryan and Jfred, who will be taking Marvin and Kevin with them for strength training. While it is hard for Omega to gain muscles, it is not impossible and the both of them have the build that might help them gain it faster than the average Omega" Matthias explained further, using a small laser pointer to highlight the next bullet point. At the thought of training extensively, Kevin loudly groaned in his seat next to me, but he was ignored by Matthias (And hushed by his brothers). "They will be gone somewhere between a week to a month, so make sure to say some goodbye's before they go if you really need to"

"And I'm guessing that I'm doing that logging company?" Katra interrupted Matthias before he could explain the next point on the list, but he was nowhere near as stressed to truly get mad at her. If anything, he seemed appreciative for her hurrying things along a little, so he nodded with a smile. Katra seemed pumped for her new assignment, stretching her shoulders, arms and shoulders in preparation despite the fact she wouldn't likely need it. "I'm going to ace that place!"

"I certainly hope you do, as it would be good to keep up your daily successful missions. It's good money for us" Matthias seemed to appreciate her upbeat attitude about it, as we certainly could use the lifting mood. It shouldn't just have to come from Paul, Jfred, me, Marvin and Kevin after all. "Now, onto the final one. We have heard rumours about a mythical sword on a smallish island off the Isles of Centica, which is way to the North-East of this city. It is said to be lost from a generation long ago, and apparently it could cut through any material if swung by a person deemed worthy enough to wield it"

"Where were these rumours coming from?" Bobby asked, obviously doubting the truth of a sword that could cut through anything. I had to admit that I doubted it too, as there had never existed such a thing in the history books.

"From Bunting Pandora" Matthias gave the name of his source, and a number of people around the room seemed to either nod their head or have recognition light up in their eyes. I was one of the few that didn't, and neither did Blaire or Katra. Even more puzzling to me was the fact I had a long look at the list of all of our clients, manufacturers and everything else... And I had never seen that name among them. "I was hoping to send Paul and Tanner there, but I just recently heard that we've accepted reclaimed bullets and there's no way I'm sending them there without making sure they properly work"

"Sorry Matthias, that was me" I immediately spoke up when that came up, both to make sure that Bobby didn't accidentally get blamed for it and because it just seemed like the right thing to do. "It was at the third of the price, and they hand check each bullet. Every other company was way more expensive, and the machines to check them would have cost us a lot as well"

"...I appreciate the fact you're owning up to that choice, and that you're sticking by it for good reasons. I still don't like reclaimed bullets, but your logic is at least somewhat sound" He reacted a lot more favourably to the news than I had expected, perhaps entirely down to the fact I had been upfront with him about it. Either way, it didn't change the fact that Matthias wasn't going to send them to the island, which left very little people to go there in replacement. "From what our reports have told us, the island is completely uninhabited, so we don't have to send people who know how to fight necessarily. I at least want Connor to go, as I've heard it's rich in minerals"

"I can at least check out the minerals and see if they're any good in my work" Connor accepted his task of going, which pleased Matthias already a great deal. For a moment it looked like Connor had looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, as though he was a little sad that I wasn't likely to go with him. "How long will I be there?"

"There isn't a minimum amount of time, as I'm really hoping that you will be able to find the sword, check the minerals and be back as soon as you can. The maximum time is a month however, as we can't allow any more time" Matthias started to rattle off various things, missing the frown that was steadily growing on Connor's face. "Gunner should go with you at least, as you need to have someone with you who has the training for self-defence just in case something  _were_ to happen. Bobby won't be able to do his job while the company is down, so take him with you so that you have more hands available to look... Uh, Blaire, would you like to go as well?"

"Sorry, I'm looking after my sister for a week, so I can't really be away for too long" Blaire apologised softly, but Matthias waved his hand in a gesture that told her that he was alright with that news. For a moment Blaire did seem to look at me out of the corner of my eye, and for a moment our eyes locked for a second. Something in my eyes made her want to say something extra, which took me by surprise. "But maybe Mila would be able to go? It can be a bit of a holiday for her, and she already trusts the three that are going"

Matthias looked at me with a questioning look, which meant that he was essentially asking me if I was alright to assign me to it as well. There was certainly merit in me going as well, as there was no way I was going to be able to work as a financier while the company was down. I was an extra set of hands too, so of course it sounded like a good idea.

...But I honestly really just wanted to go just to be with Gunner, Connor and Bobby for a while. All on our own on a small island with nobody around for a long, long while. It sounded perfect.

"I'll go too" I decided, and I felt silently quite happy when I noticed Connor's frown leave as well as Gunner and Bobby softly smiling to themselves. The room must have been really dark for Matthias, as he still didn't see that happening... I don't know if anyone actually had.

"Alright, then that's sorted" Matthias drew the short but important meeting to a close there, softly clapping his hands to essentially drop the serious mood in the room. Jfred and Bryan already started to head out with Kevin and Marvin, as did Katra to do her job, but the six of us took a little longer to stand up, which was enough for Matthias to give us some extra advice. "Paul, before you and Tanner are flying to the Michela family, drop off the other four at their island please. You should have the coordinates on your GPS. And as always, make sure you guys have enough food, water, equipment and bullets if applicable"

* * *

Twenty minutes later we were boarding Paul's banshee and taking off. While I was quite certain that the banshee was a plane that was usually kept for just a single pilot, he too had seemed to have upgraded the ship to be large enough to carry a maximum a group of twenty. In the cockpit was Paul, who flew the aircraft with a gentle manner, it not even feeling like the thing was moving due to how gently he would readjust the controls. Tanner was sitting right next to him, but his eyes were glued to the radar to make sure there wasn't any change in weather or other aircraft. 

Sitting on the seats behind them and buckled in while facing each other, I was shifting a little in my seat to get accustomed to the large backpack that I was carrying. While it was the lightest out of everything, that didn't mean it was comfy, with me being squished against my seatbelt because of the extra room. Bobby had food in his, Connor of course had his satchel of equipment from the forge and Gunner had his backpack filled with tents and sleeping bags, but I wasn't offended by them giving me the lightest one. My class type was for thinking, not strength, and I was perfectly fine with that.

"We might have a bit of turbulence soon" Tanner gently warned us, which of course made Connor (Who was already looking a bit sickly just at the thought of turbulence) grumble under his breath. "I'm honestly surprised at how gentle the winds are, aren't they usually a lot bigger?"

"They're blowing in from the South, which means the wind had to travel through the dense woodlands first" Paul absentmindedly recited his knowledge of it as he casually flicked a button on his console to switch off our invisibility shield, so that more of the power in the ship could go to the main engines. "We're actually within sight of the island that we're heading to, does anyone want to come take a look?"

"I'm good, thanks" Connor sounded like he was getting a little sick from the way the ship was jiggling and wobbling a little in the wind, but it honestly didn't feel that bad to me because Paul was doing a good job to correct everything to a manageable level. "Guh, it was a mistake to eat that bacon sandwich before getting on this"

Ah, he was just a little bit sick from the combination of them both. I giggled a little once I figured it out, unclipping myself from the seatbelt to move behind Paul to see what he was talking about, but only after gently petting Connor on the head to reassure him that he was going to be fine. He cast me a look that almost screamed puppy dog eyes when I finally moved to behind Paul, but the majestic view more than made up for it.

The island was beautiful, a somewhat tall set of pure white cliffs that stood out in the middle of the ocean, with rolling green grass on the top of it. There even seemed to be a lone building on it like a tiny forgotten church, which was near a small gap in the cliff which then led to a pebbled beach down at the side of it all.

"Wow" I breathed in awe of it all, and it seemed like Tanner was in agreement with the way he nodded his head along with my single word. Paul of course had his own way of reacting to that, and it was the usual goofy manner that I loved from him.

"Come on now, I know I'm amazing but I was talking about the island here" Paul grinned a cheeky smile as he said that, obviously loving the giggle that his comment elicited. Tanner was not as impressed of course, rolling his eyes and lightly punching his copilot in the shoulder. "Tanner! You're probably just jealous I thought of it first"

"Shut up" Tanner couldn't hide the grin on his face as he said that, which just made me devolve into a tittering mess as usual. "As much as Paul is "hilarious", you might want to sit back down Mila. We're landing soon"

I obediently went back to my seat next to Gunner and waited for us to land. Like I had expected, we touched down without any real issues, Paul perfectly being able to tell what was a safe point for his banshee despite the long grass being a little deceptive against the ground. Tanner opened the back door of the ship for us, and let the four of us go down the ramp before we could hear him sigh loudly from the cockpit.

"Dang it, I wish I could be here rather than deal with those stupid wolfkin!" Tanner threw a bit of a fit, but in an obvious childish manner that told us that he wasn't actually being one hundred percent serious.

"You could always just come after your mission, right?" Gunner asked a serious question, as we knew that their mission was likely not going to be as long as ours was. Despite this, both he and Paul shook their heads with a regretful look on their faces.

"Matt would have our hides if he heard about it. That, and if he did hear about it, it might tell him that something is going on between us that he doesn't know about" Tanner mumbled just loud enough for us to catch it, and he had a good point with it. We had to be really careful to not tip Matthias off, and them heading to us without heading back to the company was going to be a big giveaway. "So unfortunately, we'll have to see you... Whenever you guys find the sword"

"Or until a month has gone by" Connor reminded them, which seemed to be the thing that they were not exactly wanting to hear. Either way, we had places to be, and so did they. "Fly safe you guys"

"You say that like I do anything else" Paul cheekily answered that request, already pushing some buttons to fire up the ship. Right before the back door closed, I could see his eyes flicker over to my wrist for a moment and it was obvious what he was looking for. He was looking for the ladybug on it, and he looked just that little bit more relieved when he could see the black and white little bug on my arm. It was only then that the door did close, and the banshee smoothly lifted off and left the four of us on the island.

"So, I think we still have about four hours before sundown" Bobby estimated, holding his hands out in a manner that I didn't understand to judge how much time we had left before the sun would disappear below the horizon. "I was hoping to check out the pebble beach for the sword"

"Nah man, it's way more likely to be in that church" Connor argued for  going to a different thing, as he likely knew mysterious swords to be left behind by humans rather than washed up on the shore. Regardless, Bobby still seemed like he wanted to head down to the shore, so it looked like we were going to be splitting up to search certain areas. "What about you Gunner?"

"I think I'm going to be searching around in the grasslands for signs of unusual ground. I think it might be more likely to be buried underground than in an obvious church" Gunner decided, softly moving the grass away from where he stood to sling his backpack onto the ground and leave it there for the time being. "If I don't particularly find anything, then I'll start setting up our camp"

"Good idea, I can even start bringing up some stones from the beach to build a fire pit" Bobby agreed with Gunner's second idea, as we certainly did have a lot of time to start searching for it. "Mila?"

"I think I'll probably switch between locations, try to give my Omega eyes and mind a bit of a look at all of the locations" I suggested, giving a small wink to imply that I was also going to be jumping from place to place for another reason. Connor's face of course started to go red, while Gunner was smirking wolfishly and Bobby was laughing softly. Yeah, they knew perfectly why I was doing that. "I think I'll go to the pebble beach first with Bobby, I kind of want to see if there are seashells there"

With that the four of us split, me and Bobby doing the same as earlier that day, with me laying my head on his shoulder and with his arm wrapped around mine. It didn't matter that none of us knew what kind of sword we even were supposed to be looking at, as we were just happy to be in each other’s company. Finding the sword would just be a bonus to me, a side note instead of the main goal... Because honestly, I just wanted to let these guys know love before those eighteen years passed away.


	22. Love is all around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wot in tarnation, there's some steamy stuff 'appenin again

Sliding down the pebble pathway to the beach, both me and Bobby ended up coming to a halt at least ankle deep in the vast amount of stones due to how tiny they all were compared to our feet. It wasn't uncomfortable, as each one seemed to have been ground down and smoothed by the ocean and the other rocks surrounding them, so it was actually a very soothing sensation against my feet.

"Race you to the shore!" I decided to put a bit more of my youthful energy into the mix, slipping from his grasp and skidding and sliding over the pebbles like I was trying to surf on them. Bobby protested with a laugh, but he too began to surf down along with me. We did eventually make it down to the shore, where the pebbles ended up being so tiny that they almost exactly like sand, which left us to run along it until I came to a stop right in front of the waves lapping against the shore. To my slight disappointment, there weren’t actually any seashells on the shore like I had hoped, as it was something like my father had often talked about how my mother loved to collect. "Where do you think all the little creatures went?"

"Probably a lot further out in the ocean, they don't like hanging around these islands" Bobby showed a lot more of his knowledge, a spark of excitement in his eyes as he talked about the ocean and the things in it. I loved it when he talked about things that he loved, as it made him come that much more alive. "The reason that these isles appear white is because they're made of pure salt that stick up out of the ocean. It was only when people started to colonise them that they brought along ground so that grass and crops could grow"

"Oh! And I'm guessing that the fish and such don't like their ocean being too salty so they don't come close here" I confirmed with him, and he smiled again once I was starting to get it.

"You bet" He chuckled, almost naturally slinking his arm around my shoulder, showing quite clearly that he was a very physically affectionate person with me. "I once went to the Centica Isles with my extended family, but we had to travel quite a ways out to even be able to fish properly"

"You like to fish?" I asked him, and he nodded his head with an even more excited smile to match the spark in his eyes. If he had been part dog, I could have easily imagined him wagging his tail a mile a minute at the mention of fishing. "...I'm sorry if this is a bit too personal, but have you ever tried fishing as your talent?"

"I did" He admitted with a sigh, looking wistfully out over the ocean as he remembered the day he must have taken the test. "My family, including Jfred, Matthias and Bryan mind you, were so certain that it had to be fishing that was my talent. Everything else had failed and I was the best fishermen in the family, so it was the final test we ever took out of the list of current Beta talents. It was... It was devastating to find out that fishing was not it"

The smile had long since left his face since bringing up his talent again and I could do nothing else than hug him tight when I saw the tears bubble up in his eyes. Part of me felt so bad about bringing it up again, but the very fact that he felt comfortable with telling me all of this was quite something... And having the courage to cry in front of me was another amazing thing simply because of how reluctant most men were to do that.

"I was so upset that day, mainly because it was the day before my eighteenth birthday. The very next day the ministry of Beta had to declare that I was the first ever Beta to not have a talent, and I was classified to be... munted because of it"

"That's horrible!" I cried out in disbelief, accidentally frightening him by how loud I had suddenly risen with my volume. He seemed surprised with my outrage, as though he was not certain that anyone else outside of his family, let alone an Omega who didn't have to deal with the same issues that he did, was understanding his grief with everything that had happened with that. "Sorry, but I... Jesus, that's such a horrible thing to decide about you! They don't have any right to decide that!"

He was still silent for a while longer, processing the fact that I had seemed more than outraged about it, I was completely livid. But somehow, me being livid about it was the best reaction that he could have hoped for, as there was a hint of happiness and in his smile as he hugged me in gratitude. We remained there for a while to let him recollect himself, before he pulled apart with a soft smile to show that he was alright.

"Okay, let's get underway before Connor accuses us of not doing anything down here" Bobby tried to brush it off with a bit of a joke, and I gave him a bit of a chuckle to help him shrug the subject off his shoulders. "There honestly isn't much down here... Do you think the sword would be somewhere in the ocean around the island?"

"If it was, it probably would be really corroded by now because of the extra salt in the water" I thought about it for a short bit, before I softly kicked the pebbles under my feet. There was a remote possibility that the sword was buried under the vast amount of pebbles on the beach, but something told me that it wouldn't be sharp anymore if it was. I looked further around the beach for possible areas that made more sense for the sword to be hidden, when a thin crack in the white rock cliffs drew my attention. "Do you think that a small cave by the shore would be an ideal location for a sword to be hidden?"

"That does actually sound like a good place, but why are you..." Bobby obviously hadn't seen the same crack as I had, but soon he turned his head to me, only to follow the direction in which my eyes were facing. Before long he spotted the very same crack, which looked barely big enough for someone to slip in. "Ah, I see it now. Let's go investigate it"

Bobby led the way over to the crack, and he was the first one to peer in cautiously. Despite me being the thinner of the two of us, he clambered into the crack first, likely because he had deemed it to be big enough for him not to get stuck inside.

"Come on in, it's actually a lot bigger on the inside than it originally seems" He called for me to follow him inside, and I carefully clambered in with my platform heels to make sure that I wasn't going to slip on the admittedly slippery inside of the cave. My careful nature wasn't entirely needed, as Bobby was more than happy to hold out his hands for me to hold onto, which helped a lot to make sure that none of my black clothing nor heels were tarnished. "It's beautiful isn't it?"

Once I was actually inside could I see the shining pool right in the middle of the cave, the water almost seeming like it was a perfect reflection of aquamarine. Besides the light coming from our backs, the pool was bright enough to light up the entire cave and coating everything in a greenish blue colour. It was absolutely breath taking, so much so that I was perfectly fine with just staring for a good long while.

"Wow" I uttered that for what felt like the third time that day, the Isles being very beautiful with more than just their white cliffs. Bobby was not as blown away by it as I was, as he was already drawn to writing on the wall of the cave nearby rather than gazing in a spellbound manner. Him splitting away from me to read it was enough to break my own spell, which of course made me curious about what had been written. "Oh, what does that say?"

"A beautiful mind must gaze into a pool" Bobby recited the words perfectly in the wall, tracing them softly with his fingers to make sure that he had gotten them correct. "Mind... Maybe it has to do with Omega? Your class type is known for having a lot of intelligence after all"

Out of curiosity I began to stare quite intensely into the shining pool... But nothing really seemed to change. Bobby came beside me to peer in as well to see if he could spot any difference, but clearly he found none either as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe I need to be grabbing something in the bottom of the pool while you stare into it" Bobby suggested another thing, already shifting his shirt up a little to remove it from his body. "I should probably remove this though; I'm not exactly planning to enter a wet T-shirt contest"

"Bobby!" I jokingly protested to either idea, as no matter which option he went for, it was going to be a racy one. He just chuckled a cheeky laugh before he slipped his black shirt over his head smoothly, actually fully removing it and handing it to me for safekeeping.

I found myself a little dumbfounded, as Bobby was not the one of my suitors to actually offer to striptease in front of me (That was Gunner) and yet he was the first one to actually be shirtless in front of me with the full intention of showing off his skin to me. Unlike Gunner's impressive set of abs, Bobby's astounding muscles were entirely in his biceps and shoulders, them looking like he had been chiselled from a stone statue by god himself. And while his abs certainly were not on Gunner's level, they certainly weren't something to sneeze at either.

"Enjoying the view?" He quite obviously teased me for the fact I had been staring at his physique a lot longer than I had the entire cavern, even going so far as to shift his body into a pose that accentuated his biceps even more. I giggled in an abashed manner, lightly slapping him on the back to make him hurry up and actually get into the pool to see if anything had changed. "Alright alright, I'll put the charm away for just a bit until we're sure that there's no sword here"

He hopped into the pool with a small splash, the both of us finding out that the pool was shallower than we had first guessed it to be, the water barely coming up to his midriff. Even before he could begin searching in the bottom of the pool, something obviously proceeded to react to him getting in by the colour rapidly changing from aquamarine to a deep dark green. We both held our breath for a moment, but it soon appeared that it wasn't actually dangerous to his health in any manner.

"Is there anything you can feel in there?" I asked him, and he began to shift his legs around in a way so feel if anything had shifted or opened up since him getting in, but he shook his head to show that nothing had particularly changed. Part of me began to wonder about the inscription on the cave wall, which formed another idea in my mind about what we could try. "Maybe it's just supposed to be me hopping in. The water turned green, and you're a Beta, so maybe they want the water to turn blue for an Omega"

"Ah, that might be it!" Bobby agreed with the idea, if nothing else it was likely better than what he was coming up with, and he clambered out to swap. The water of the pool proceeded to turn back to its aquamarine the moment he was out, the only sign of him actually being ever in there was the water dripping off Bobby's body. His lower half was completely soaked, the light grey of his pants turning a shade darker due to the fluid he had been in, but he seemed unfazed by it. "Here, I can take that now"

'That' turned out to be his shirt, which he did indeed take once I realised that was what he was referring to, but he didn't put it back on yet for some reason. It was my turn to now hop in, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the water was warm when I descended into it. Instantly the water turned into a dark blue to match my class type and I shifted my legs around in a similar manner over the floor to check for any changes like Bobby had done. Sadly, just like his turn, nothing seemed to have actually happened, and I was left with a wet skirt and stockings for no real reason.

"Bummer, nothing's really happened" I was a bit disappointed with the lack of result, but I quickly was distracted by the sound of splashing directly behind me. I turned around to see Bobby had slipped back in, him sidling up to me in an obviously flirtatious manner. "Bobby! Oh my god, you are so bad!"

I couldn't help but giggle as he said nothing but just grinned a wolfish grin at me, smoothly wrapping his arms around my waist and back before allowing me to lie back in his arms as he dipped me down. So much for trying to put the charm away, it was like he was unable to keep his hands off me. We came together for a passionate kiss as I ran my hands through his hair, enjoying the way his styled hair came apart under my ministrations... When a bright shining light distracted the both of us from each other.

Looking down at the water, we realised that there was something we had missed the moment Bobby had entered the water with me. His green and my blue ended up combining to make the very same aquamarine that the water had been originally and there was a shining light between our feet, obviously being unlocked because we had both entered the water.

"Ooooh, that's what they meant by a pool. Some people refer to eyes as pools in some writing circles" I sighed, rolling my eyes when I remembered that some of the people in the writing clubs at my highschool had used that incorrect term. Why some ancient civilisation would use the same term was beyond me, but it got us something at least. "Now, what actually is this?"

I reached my hand into the pool, and this time I could actually feel something solid in my hands as I brought it back up. It was shimmering a pure white light even as it came out of the water, and it appeared to us both in the form of a single white rose attached onto what I could only assume was a hairclip. The more I softly ran my hands around the side of it did I discover two things, one being that the rose was actually made out of some strong material like glass, and the second being that there was an inscription on the underside of it. Carefully turning it over so as not to drop it, I read aloud the fine writing, which luckily was in a language that I could understand.

"May whoever wear this flower bring with them the safety of their lover's will and might, that no harm shall befall them" I read aloud the words, and after reading them the glow of the flower itself seemed to lessen until it was nothing more than a glimmer that reflected the light from the shining pool. Bobby gently plucked the flower from my hands and tried to put it in my hair, but I shifted my head away before he could accomplish it. "Wait, no! What if it's a one-time thing that can only be used once? I don't want to accidentally use it from tripping over a rock or something"

"It'd still be worth it" Bobby insisted that I still wear it, him gently guiding my head back so that he could clip it in. Using it to softly place some stray hairs away from the centre of my head, soon the flower was safely nestled in my brown hair. He took only a step backwards to get a better look at how it was on me, and it was clear that he was happy with the softest smile on his face. "There we go, perfect"

"Charmer" I couldn't help but respond in my usual cheeky manner, which brought back his same one from before. It didn't take him long to take that same step back to me along with a smirk I knew all too well. "I'm almost getting the impression that you got me wet for other purposes than actually searching for the sword"

"And if I was?" He tested me that little bit, a final check to make sure that I was fine with going down the same route that he was thinking of, bringing his face impossibly close but also leaving me just enough room to back out if I wanted to. But boy, was he correct in assuming that I was just as eager to dive in like he was.

I let my hands naturally slip back into his hair as I kissed him again, enjoying the way I was messing up his perfect hair even more as he wrapped his arms tight around me again. His arms weren't for show this time, him using them to hoist me up and wrap my legs around his hips before moving slightly forward so that he could lay me down on the floor outside of the pool. He even thoughtfully had placed his dry shirt underneath where he laid me, but I felt it was kind of a moot point once I was actually there as the shirt was immediately wet the moment my back contacted it.

Messing up my lipstick even further than what it had already been, he hungrily kissed my lips as he pressed his chest down against mine, obviously enjoying the feel of my velvet jumper against his bare skin. What he enjoyed even more than that was when I began to thoroughly explore his chest, a very pleased purr leaving his throat once my hands rested on his pecs. His own hands started to map out my body as well, his hands slowly gliding up my very soaked tights and coming to rest at my hips.

The magic sort of started to slip away as he began to shift his head and kiss and suckle over my neck, getting just a tad bit too close to my own bonding site for my comfort.

"Ah, Bobby wait" I managed to get out those words around the gasps of pleasure coming out of my mouth, and luckily for me he was listening intently enough to pick out me asking him to pause. Almost immediately he did pause in what he was doing, before lifting himself off me with a slightly worried look in his eyes. He clearly must have thought that he had crossed a line somewhere, and I was quick to reassure him that he hadn't scared or worried me. "You were just getting a bit close to my bonding site"

A bonding site was a location on our body that was usually bitten when we wanted to be someone's mate, and usually it would be done that the weaker class type would be the one who was bit. It was however a bit fast for me to completely do that with Bobby, as I was still a bit uncertain about things between me and the others, so it was prudent for me to tell him before he accidentally bit it in his worked up state. Besides, a lot of people knew that an Omega automatically was in the mood for sex the moment they were bitten, so it was a touchy subject for Omega as some Alpha had sadly taken advantage of that in the past.

"Oh! Shoot, I didn't even realise, that's my bad" Bobby apologised anyway, but at least he wasn't beating himself up over it. It did however reinforce the truth that Beta were not that good at smelling other people's scents, as it had completely passed him by that he was doing that. "Do you want to call it quits here?"

"Yeah, for today at least" I decided that I was quite comfortable with how that had gone, letting him help me sit up before he got out of the pool. "So, no sword in here"

"Nope, definitely not" Bobby agreed, as there was no real other place in the cave that we could see that could reasonably hide a sword. With a sigh from him, it appeared that our excursion to the beach hadn't brought us any closer to finding the sword we had been searching for... But at the same time, we certainly enjoy our excursion together. "I'm going to be searching around on the beach for some good stones for a fire pit for a while longer though, and hopefully the wind will dry me off a bit"

"Don't be back too late" I gently warned him with a smile as I kissed his cheek softly, looking very pleased with myself as he immediately returned mine with his own. "I'm going to head up to the grasslands to help out Gunner in his search; I'm a little tired of getting wet right now"

Bobby's eyebrow raised in a flirtatious manner the moment I finished my sentence, but I gently slapped him on the shoulder before he could make a joke about anything I had just mentioned in that sentence. With a soft laugh passing between the both of us, we split up so that he began to search for those stones he wanted while I began to slide and scramble up the pathway to the grasslands. From what I could see halfway up the pathway, I still had some hours of daylight remaining, and I certainly planned to get some more stuff done before it dipped below the horizon.


	23. Kiss from a rose

After making it back to the top of the island, it was child's play to find Gunner, as he had decided to postpone his search around the grasslands in favour of setting up our camp before it got too dark. So far he had managed to pitch two tents up, both looking large enough to hold at least two people, which meant that there was no way I was going to be cold that night.

But just thinking about the cold reminded me of the fact I was still thoroughly soaked, and the winds on top of the island certainly were quite fierce at that moment. My shivering probably was the main reason that Gunner had even heard me coming, both my chattering teeth and jiggling limbs making me stand out like a sore thumb.

"Mila! Oh my god, what happened to you?" Gunner asked me somewhat concerned, him obviously not yet drawing the conclusion in his mind that my degree of dryness was of my own volition. He immediately started to grab a towel from one of the bags that had been left behind and began to pat me down before wrapping me in its fluffy texture. "But seriously, what happened? Did you fall into the ocean?"

"No, there was a pool in a small cave. I suppose we might have been thinking along the lines of the old myth of that king who received a sword from someone in a lake, cause we decided to jump in" I giggled a little, finding it a little funny to recount to him. Before long Gunner's gaze did seem to drift slightly upwards from my face, the glass rose grabbing his attention right at the point where I was going to explain what it was. "We also found this glass flower in the bottom of the pool, supposedly it can protect someone's lover from danger"

"I should have known that Bobby would be getting up to no good and getting you wet" He cheekily addressed that first part of my sentence, but for some reason my brain was honing in on the fact that he had purposefully ignored the latter one... Which was a little odd, to say the least. "I'm guessing there was no sword?"

"Correct, there wasn't a sword anywhere that seemed logical" I affirmed his initial guess, smiling fondly at him as he returned to finish off the campsite. Something in me was still curious about his odd reaction to Bobby's decision to put the glass flower in my hair, and I really needed to know why that was. After all, they already were hiding the secret of the event happening in eighteen years’ time, so I was even more determined to not have any more secrets between us. "By the way, was Bobby a real Casanova before I showed up at P.W.C.? He certainly seems to have some moves"

"...Not really, he wasn't really the kind of guy to date many girls" Once again, Gunner's remark struck me as a little bit odd, his voice very standoffish and he seemed to be quite vague about the subject in general. It was such a stark contrast to his usual teasing tone and funny quips that I couldn't for the life of me seem to let it go. The thing that ultimately made me change course was the little plaster wrapped around one of his fingers, which my mind distinctly could not remember him having before we had split up to different locations.

"What happened to your finger?" I decided that perhaps it was best to switch to another thing, as asking about his uncomfortable tone about the earlier one seemed like it would have just made him retract further and further away from me. Like I had expected, he seemed a lot more relieved by the subject swap, as he smiled softly at me before gesturing a little bit away from our camp.

"There's a flower bush not far from here, and it was kind of thorny when I inspected it a bit closer. Come check it out" Gunner directed me over to a short bush largely hidden by the long grasslands, but sure enough the small vibrant red flowers were noticeable as he swept aside the grass. "When I pricked myself I at first thought it was poisonous, but I don't think it is. It shows what I can only assume to be the future"

"This island seems to have a lot more than just a sword apparently" I mumbled thoughtfully as my hand naturally reached up to feel the glass flower, and I could swear that I saw Gunner looking at it in an... Envious manner? "Who made these? The flowers and the sword I mean"

"Who knows, maybe it was a wizard" Gunner jokingly suggested, doing some funny gestures in the air as if he was shooting off fireballs and lightning bolts from his fingertips, all around looking a little silly. I loved it however, as it seemed far more genuine than his stiff mannerisms from before. For a moment everything seemed to have gone back to normal between us, when it almost seemed to remind him of something, and all of a sudden his smile and laugh were tempered heavily back into a serious and subdued manner. "Are you curious about what you'll see?"

My eyes drifted back to the flower, it's red flower and equally red thorns seeming to stand out in a very vibrant manner against the endless green of the landscape. Had a stranger recommend that I prick myself against an unknown plant, I would have likely never done it, as well as making sure to pointedly never be alone around that person ever again. But somehow because it was Gunner who was asking me, I did eventually reach my hand out to the thorns on it, perhaps even doing so out of curiosity. The red thorn sunk into my skin, even seeming like it would have even been mistaken for the bright red colour of my blood for a brief second, when-

_"-eft! Left!" I hurriedly heard Gunner call out, and only a moment later my hands wrestled with the problematic controls of... Some strange machine that I somehow had gained control over._

_Whatever we were in was very cramped, as all seven of us were cramped into the little nooks and crannies of the engine and around the barrel. Everyone had been assigned a task in the cramped stations, ranging from reloading the massive barrel, to spotting enemies all the way to my control of how the darn thing was steered. Even as I sat there, my mind seemed stuck between two states of being. One was what I considered to be my current self, viewing something completely foreign to my knowledge, while another part of me was in the moment, where I knew how to control the contraption and I was doing so purposefully._

_"Heavy right!" Came Gunner's next call, and the adrenaline pounding in my veins caused me to sharply veer the machine to the right despite me being unable to see where I was going. My movement seemed to have been perfect to what Gunner had wanted, as then it was someone else's turn to perform when he asked them to. "Fire main barrel!"_

_"Firing!!" Connor acknowledged the command before the barrel violently shot out a massive projectile. The entire machine shook with the barrel going off, but somehow that only seemed to make the buzz in my veins zing with excitement. "Reload!"_

_"Reloading!" Bobby was next to call out his task, pressing a number of buttons on his side before the machine shuddered and shifted to insert a new bullet into the long barrel. "Gun reloaded!"_

_"Align gun to the left! Increase speed and alter course to the left!" Paul commanded the rest of us, as he and Gunner were the only ones to be able to see out of the view port at the top of the machine. Paul of course had the extra bonus of being in the military for the short while he had trained, so he already knew better on how to command the giant contraption._

_"Increasing speed!" Someone completely foreign to me spoke up from just below my feet, but my future-self seemed to know who he was. All I could see of the top of his head was that he had long brown hair, but I still couldn't seem to remember him from the company... And yet I knew him._

_"Aligning gun to the left!" Tanner called out immediately after the other man spoke, and we could hear the machine creak and shift so that the barrel was now angling more to our left. Once he was doing that did I find it necessary to alter the steering of the machine to match what he was doing, and it seemed that we were in tandem with each other, as a new order cam immediately after we had followed that one._

_"Fire!" The main gun got fired the moment that was called out, the juddering and shaking from before rattling us in our seats. Paul and Gunner both pumped their fists in excitement the moment we heard a loud explosion outside of our machine, which meant that we had hit our target. "It's a direct hit! Alter gun and steering slightly back to the right to get centered again and then floor the speed on this thing!"_

_"Woooo!!" Connor was the first one to let out a loud cheer as our machine stormed over the ground, the loud engine only serving to make the rest of us join him in his cheer. It didn't matter how dangerous it was to drive this thing, the very fact that we were doing it perfectly was an exhilarating experience. The seven of us were perfectly in sync, so much so that it didn't matter that it was the first time we had ever driven one of those things... It was glorious in every single way._

I got thrown violently out of that strange experience like someone had thrown my subconscious back into my own body, and I was back in front of that little red flower bush again. My eyes felt dryer than they had ever been before, and I furiously blinked them as I stood back up and got acquainted with the real world again.

"That was... That was weird. It was like I was there, but not really? I was both the person experiencing the event and myself viewing it like a stranger would" I had to admit, not really sure entirely what I was supposed to make of it. What were we driving? Who was that seventh person whom I did not recognise? But possibly the most important was why we were needing to drive something that could fire rounds larger than my arm. I knew that asking Gunner about it would be a moot point, as he likely knew as little about it as I did. "Did you see the same thing as I did?"

"I'm not sure" Gunner almost seemed a bit secretive about what he had seen himself, instead making the question do a turn and making it come back to me. "What did you see?"

Part of me wanted to sigh about him being so secretive, but after a bit of thinking I supposed that I actually only knew the secretive Gunner and not the honest version of him. I had never heard him talk about his high school friend, only catching a glimpse of that from the last moments of our court case, and that wasn't even including the obvious secret that these guys were still keeping... It was a bit sad to realise that I didn't actually know much about him.

"I saw the seven of us together in some kind of machine. I couldn't really figure out what it was because of how cramped it was, but I was in control of steering it" I recounted what I could of the memory, and almost instantly Gunner narrowed his eyes in confusion at the mention of how many people there were.

"...Seven? Don't you mean six?" He aptly picked that up, as he couldn't imagine a person like Kevin, Marvin or the three leading brothers of the company to split on their own and join us. "There's me, you, Bobby, Connor, Paul and Tanner"

"No, there definitely was a seventh person" I was certain about it, just as much as Gunner was certain that it couldn't be true. This could only mean that he hadn't seen the same vision as I had, as the seventh person had spoken in the memory as well. "He had long brown hair, but I couldn't really see his face. I don't know him personally now, but... The me in the future knew who he was, and she knew that he was an ally"

"Oh, okay" Gunner was once again oddly quiet about his side of things, being very noncommittal about it. I waited patiently in front of him to see if he would take the opportunity to talk about what he had seen, maybe even slightly hint that it was not the same as mine... But I was sorely disappointed. "Ah, we probably should get back to work"

He turned around and began to shift back to the campsite... And it honestly left me with a sad feeling in my soul. I wasn't sure why, but the realisation that he didn't trust me was immensely painful to experience, and it made me start to wonder if Gunner was truly the right person for me. Compared to the other four, he was the only one who still refused to show things to me that seemed to be quite trivial in nature, which was just never going to work with me.

"Gunner, wait" I sharply called him before he could get too far away from me, and he froze instantly the moment I had spoken to him in that tone. It was the first time I had talked to him like that, and it became obvious that he didn't know what to do with it when he slowly looked back at me with an unsure look in his eyes. I tromped over the long grass to get to him, with the clear intent in my mind to break up with him then and there with a good reasoning behind it. The fear in his eyes made me furiously backpedal, figuratively speaking, instead switching tactics to possibly correct the problem that we were having between us both. "Look, I don't know what you saw with that flower, and I'm not going to insist that you have to tell me. But you obviously must have seen something that has made you uncomfortable, as you're now completely closing yourself off from me. Whatever it was, don't punish me for it"

He looked shocked that I had figured him out so quickly, but I gently tapped the side of my head to remind him that I was smarter than his class type. That seemed to make him more abashed than it did shocked, as he had seemingly thought that he had somehow hidden the truth well under a guise of indifference. Had I been a complete stranger to him, then it likely would have completely flown over my head, but I knew him better than that.

"...You're right, I'm sorry" Gunner eventually seemed to relent on his lie that he was perfectly fine with it, sighing and rubbing his eyes tiredly behind his glasses. He had knocked them slightly askew from doing so, but that just gave him the time to remove them and studiously clean them against his shirt. "I saw something that I didn't really like in that future"

"Was I dead?" I immediately leaped to the worst possible theory, both in the sense that it would be understandable that he would be rattled by that, and in the sense that I knew a little bit more about what was going to happen in eighteen years to the lot of them. It seemed that it was a little too far however, as Gunner's immediate reaction was that of genuine shock and horror with the idea. "So, I wasn't dead, that's good"

"Why was that your first guess?" Gunner asked with a dry chuckle, and for a moment I could notice that it was a tad bit of a lie in something he had said. The best guess I could make was that it would be something he had thought about, but it was not the vision he had been shown. "No, it was something different. I wasn't in your life anymore, and it wasn't really my choice"

In turn, my own brain immediately jumped to the worst possible explanation that was possible, one that I could only figure out because I was more informed by Paul. Gunner must have seen his own death happening, and it understandably would be something that he couldn't bring up with me as then I would then ask him too many questions on how on Alfu he could die in a company that never sent him on military missions.

I subconsciously reached out to gently hold one of his available hands now that he had placed his glasses back onto his face, intent to somehow reach him. Something in me knew that I wasn't going to get any more of the truth out of him, so it meant that I had to probe deeper with one of the other four instead if I was still intent on trying to help them out in eighteen years’ time. The only thing I could now do with Gunner was reassure him, and try to still be there for him.

"If nothing else, I'm sticking to my own vision" I firmly told him, not at all caring about the fact that my future could possibly be one that happened before his, I was deciding that mine was in the future from his one and that his future was wrong. I was going to make that future wrong, if nothing else than jumping straight into the problem they were having. I was going to be present for whatever was happening in eighteen years’ time, to save as many lives as I possibly could, and that meant I had to press more on them for the truth. "In my future, you were still in my life Gunner, and I'm going to make that a reality"

Once those words had registered in his mind that I was serious, he immediately began to tear up from the promise I had made. Even though there still was that slight sliver of doubt in his eyes, he clearly wanted to believe in the promise I had made to him. Immediately after that I wrapped him in as much as I could hug him, and he sniffled a little into my shoulder as he tried to hug me back gently. We unfortunately got only two minutes of that hug before I could hear a single set of footprints making their way towards us, and we gently lifted our heads away to see that Bobby had arrived, with a bunch of stones in his arms like he had promised that he was searching for.

"You, uh... You guys okay?" Bobby asked a little uncertain, as the most he could likely have seen was the fact that we were hugging, and now he could see that Gunner had certainly been crying. The first possible thought in his mind might have been that I had just broken up with Gunner, and I likely would have made that first assumption was I in his shoes. "Do you need to me to leave for a moment?"

"No, it's alright" I decided for both me and Gunner, as I only had about an hour of sunlight left in the air before it would become pitch black. If I took too long, then it would become increasingly difficult to try and get Connor alone, and so far he was my best bet with getting the truth from them. Bobby was quite stubborn about not telling me things, Gunner was even worse, and the final two weren't on the island, so Connor had to do. "We were just talking about the future"

Bobby's eyes twitched momentarily over the mention of the future, and for a brief second I could see him narrow his eyes suspiciously at Gunner, now possibly thinking more along the lines that Gunner had spilled the truth to me. In the blink of an eye his narrowed eyes returned to normal, continuing the illusion that he would have no idea what that meant.

"Oh? What kind of things in the future?" Bobby seemed to switch tactics to throw me off that something was off, a cheeky smile on his face as he sidled up to Gunner and bumping into him with his own shoulder on purpose. Gunner seemed to pick up on what Bobby was trying to do, plastering a normal looking smile on his face and chuckling at his friends joke. "Already talking about what colour the baby's room is going to be, eh?"

"Eeeww, gross!" I played along for the time being, pretending to be grossed out like a child would at the mention of having kids. With that cheeky atmosphere in the air, I decided it was the best time to back out of the conversation and go look for Connor, shuffling away from them and running in a gleeful manner towards the church like I was just doing it to avoid more talk of babies. "I'm leaving! I'll come back when baby talk is done!"

The both of them uttered a laugh that sounded genuine as I dashed away from them, the last thing that I could make out from the both of them being that Bobby was telling me to be careful and not trip in the grass. The moment we couldn't hear each other however, I cast a glance backwards and was not surprised at all to see that their smiles had left. Bobby had a serious look on his face now that he thought I wasn't paying attention to him, asking a question in a grave manner to Gunner before the latter shook his head at whatever the question had been. Now looking slightly more relieved, Bobby's face returned to something more normal to him, and that was the time that I stopped looking at them in case he happened to see me looking a moment later.

I guessed quite easily that the question had been whether or not Gunner had truly told me anything he wasn't supposed to, which just furthered the idea that they were hiding the event from eighteen years from me. Whatever the case, I now had one shot left to learn the truth before they all would get too suspicious and refuse to talk about anything to do with the future from me. There was always the option of me going back to Paul and trying to get the last remnants of truth from him, but I wanted to avoid that possibility if I could, as that meant that all of the blame would end up back on him.

And so, with a firm mind-set, I circled around the church until I found Connor inspecting the stone bricks there. Like a vulture swooping in, I moved in with the intent on learning everything I needed to, damn the consequences to my own life.


	24. Trying not to love you

Connor was blissfully unaware that I had showed up until I had tapped him on the shoulder, clearly under the impression that he wouldn't be disturbed by the rest of us for another hour or so. Even with the slight jump he gave when I touched him, his face broke out into a radiant smile once he saw that it was me, practically emanating happiness once I had decided to join him.

"Oh hey, it's good to see you. Did you get tired of hanging out with Bobby and Gunner?" He spoke as if he saw himself as on the bottom rung in importance, his choice of words implying that he thought that I would only come to see him if I was sick and tired of the other two. It made me feel a little bad, as I had only really decided to seek out Connor because both Bobby and Gunner wouldn't give me the information I wanted to hear. "You look like you've been swimming"

"Ah, me and Bobby found a cave, there was a pool inside it so we investigated it" I explained it the best I could without dawdling on that one subject for too long. After all, Gunner had reacted in an odd manner when I had told him about the glass flower, so I wanted to avoid the chances that Connor would do the same.

"I'm assuming that's where you guys found that flower in your hair? It looks like some kind of glass to me" He asked, clearly interested in the flower due to his talent mainly focusing on creating objects such as it. I nodded my head, and was ever so grateful to notice that he wasn't bothered by the flower, possibly because he didn't know about the inscription. "You know, I used to dabble in glass blowing a year or two ago. Wasn't any good at it, but it was so much fun"

...The more he spoke, the worse I was feeling about coming to him just to ask about the future. Here he was, just honestly speaking to me in a happy manner as if nothing was wrong, and it felt so dirty of me to come here and try to skip past everything he was excited about.

"Oh, before I forget, I made you something" Connor somehow seemed to miss all of the parts of me that were hesitating and stalling, instead reaching into one of his pockets for something he had made before this trip, and pulling out a small object that was brightly coloured before handing it to me with a shy smile. "Here, I hope you like it"

I accepted the small gift, it being a very tiny brightly coloured metal duck. Seemingly using some metal that had a bright orange tinge to it for the bill, and he had painted the rest in a soft yellow colour, it seemed to peer up at me with it's cute little eyes and grooved feathers... And somehow, the thoughtful gift he had made for me was the clincher that I was being utterly rude to him.

"...You don't like it, do you?" Connor finally seemed to pick up on my lacklustre reactions, his smile slipping away with a look that seemed to show his unsure nature in our relationship. He still likely believed that he didn't deserve me in some manner, and my lack of response was only exacerbating that fear of his. "Dang it, it might have been too soon for gifts. If you don't want it, I'm not going to be upset"

"Connor, I'm sorry" I readily apologised to him, gently clutching the duck in my hands before he could reach out and take it back. His confusion only seemed to grow, a growing sense of worry present in his eyes about where this subject was going. It was a possibility that he had misunderstood my signals to mean that I was breaking up with him, and that was just making things worse in my mind. "God, I'm being so mean to you"

"Is this because you came to visit me last out of the three of us guys? Because if it is, you don't have to worry, I understand" Connor was already trying to make things right long before we had even figured out what the problem was, or about who was at fault, so I knew I couldn't tiptoe around the subject any longer. I either had to dive completely in, or I had to back off... And the latter one was not an option. "I mean, someone has to come last after all"

"Connor, I came over here because I had wanted to know something that I couldn't ask the other two. The fact you were so happy to see me just made me feel really guilty, but I need to know the truth" I phrased it in such a way that it could have been obvious for him to figure out what I was talking about if he truly considered it for long, but he seemed to have been giving me the benefit of the doubt, as he looked completely clueless about what I could ask him about. "I know about what's happening in eighteen years"

His reaction was immediate, his eyes scanning over my face for a long time with a surprised look in his eyes, as though he was trying to tell if I was bluffing. He couldn't find any sign of hesitation, but he obviously still wanted to have that final confirmation before he would say anything on the matter.

"...So, what is happening eighteen years?" Connor's tone of voice showed that he was still trying to put up a facade of ignorance about the subject, but his face was a dead giveaway that he knew what I was talking about.

"Everyone in a higher position in the company is likely to die in an incident" I said slowly, and his surprise quickly snapped to fear. The fear that was there was one that seemed to be a mixture of concern for my own well-being, and just pure unadulterated terror at the thought that I had somehow figured it out. "I also know that our company name is not the Personalised Workforce Company, it's the Prevention of Widespread Chaos"

"Who told you that?" He asked me with what was likely supposed to be a firm tone, but the worried expression on his face and fearful voice made it waver in its effectiveness to actually make me talk. I stubbornly shook my head to show him that I wasn't about to tell him who had actually divulged that information to me, but he was nearly as stubborn as I was in this case. "Mila, I'm serious, whoever told you that could be in big trouble if Matthias ever found out they told you that"

"I'm not saying who it was" I still stuck to my guns on not telling him who it was, and it became obvious that the longer we talked that this anxiety and worry was growing. Besides, if the person was only going to get into trouble, there was then no benefit for me to actually tell Connor about who it was. "I promised them that I wouldn't"

"Damn it Mila! Whoever it was, they've... You're probably..." Connor started to lose the fight in him, likely also picking up on the fact that there was no benefit for me to tell him now that I already knew about it. Slumping against the Church wall behind him, he put his head in his hands and tiredly rubbed them as he tried to calm his misaligned thoughts. "...Who else have you told beyond whoever it was?"

"Nobody, just you" I was able to admit that honestly, and for a moment there was a sheepish look in his eyes, almost as if he was very silently pleased with the fact I had only trusted him so far with the information. But now that he was not on the offensive, it was the best time to figure out more behind it. "The only thing I don't know now is about what is actually going to... Well, kill you guys"

Connor remained silent for a while longer, obviously still not one hundred percent comfortable with telling me all about it. When he finally removed his hands, the only emotion in his eyes was concern, the main reason for why he wasn't telling me was in fear that I would be somehow put in more danger than before. But as much as he was both fearful and a stubborn man, he also knew that not telling me would leave me in more danger than letting me know would.

"...There's going to be an Alpha army in eighteen years’ time" He finally spilled the truth... But it was far worse than I had even imagined. "Now keep in mind, when I say army, I don't mean fifty of them. It's probably somewhere closer to around... God, five billion?"

Five billion... Jesus, I don't even think Alfu had that amount of people, let alone that amount of Alpha. It could only mean that they were pulling Alpha from other planets as well, all of them somehow twisted enough to form some kind of gigantic army to terrorise us all.

"They're not going to be here on Alfu. Or at least, not at first" Connor kept going, finally finding his courage to stand up straight and move forward to hold onto my shoulders. I wondered for a moment why he was doing that, when I felt the wobbling in my legs had returned, and he was likely afraid that I was going to buckle under them like I had after being nearly kidnapped by Tadashi. If the thought of one Alpha trying to hurt me was bad, then this was just... catastrophic. "They're going to hit Pandora first, likely because it has the most population in our solar system. I'm guessing that they're hoping that the other planets in the solar system will all give up without a fight once they win over Pandora, simply because the others would not believe they had a chance"

Pandora had over sixteen billion people living on its surface, last I had checked at the time. It had originally been sixty billion, but the harsh conditions that sprung up after some idiot opened the first vault caused it to plummet sharply. Even though it still was three times the amount of what Connor thought was going to be there in terms of the army, the army consisted entirely of Alpha, who at their weakest could defeat one hundred people with a single soldier. At most in the actual terms, each Alpha only had to kill around three to four people to win... Which was a frightening thought, no matter how I tried to look on the bright side of it all.

"And you guys are seriously trying to fight them?" I asked him, my voice wavering in utter fear at the thought of them confronting that number of Alpha intent on doing them harm. Connor grimaced, but didn't shake his head, so I sadly had to take that as his way of affirming it to be the truth. It couldn't be their entire company, as there was no way I could imagine Matthias forcing people to fight an army if they didn't want to. And it also had to be people who were in the know, which currently would have been... Kevin, Marvin, the three leading brothers of the company, Connor, Gunner, Bobby, Paul and Tanner. Which meant, that at most, they had a group of ten people willing to fight an army of five billion. "That's insane! There's no way you can win with ten people against five billion, there's just no way!"

"...I know, but we can't roll over and accept them ruling over every other class type like some twisted superior race. We also can't just pass it on to the younger generation after us, we have to do it when they attack, which is when we'll have the most chance of doing the most damage to their army and it might give other people the courage to do the same as us" Connor showed a brave amount of courage with deciding to actually be a part of their rebellion, no matter how slim the chances were that they survived. "We're doing it so that others hopefully won't have to"

"But you'll die!" I cried, both in the figurative sense and the literal sense, my tears freely flooding down my face as I clutched onto his shoulders for dear life as if he was going to vanish from thin air if I didn't. My emotions were completely shattered from the realisation of what they were up against, especially so when I realised that my addition likely wouldn't give them enough strength to survive it.

"I know! But if we don't, then we'll live in a world where awful things will happen as if they're normal! Tadashi kidnapping you and keeping you as god knows what, would be a perfectly normal thing for them" Connor pleaded with me to understand, softly shaking my shoulders to make me realise that he was extremely serious about his decision. "I stayed away from you when we first met because I was afraid of getting attached to you, but I already knew it was the right thing to fight against that Alpha army. Now, I'm doing it because I don't want you to ever live in a world like that"

"I don't want you to fight for me, I want you to live!!" I selfishly begged him, my raw fear for their lives completely trumping the idea of what was morally right in the moment. Connor immediately looked hurt when I cried further, almost looking like he was considering agreeing to no longer fight in the battle just to not have to put me through his death, but after a little bit of further thinking the fear of what the Alpha would do to me won out in terms of worse things in his mind.

Rather than reject or accept my plea, he pulled me into a hug to soothe me. In a way, it was his way of apologising for the fact that he still was going to fight, but that he was doing it still to protect me and so many others.

"I love you so much, more than anything I've ever known" Connor admitted to me as he tried to gently kiss my temple and hold my still sobbing body close to him, speaking with nothing more than a whisper as though to will my worries away with a gentle tone and the best of wishes in his mind. "But it's exactly because I love you that I can't let them hurt you... And that means I have to stand against them, even if there is a one in a billion chance of me surviving"

"What's all the yelling about? We heard something going on, but..." Bobby trailed off near the end of his sentence as he and Gunner came around the corner, clearly catching enough of our yelling to be concerned, but not enough for them to understand fully what was happening. All they could see of me and Connor when we were separating was the absolute mess that was my face, and the anxiety in Connor's eyes. "Jesus, what happened here?"

"She knows" Connor put simply, knowing that there was no way that me and him were going to be able to pass it off as 'nothing', and certainly not as something far less important than our lives and love. Like Connor had done before, the both of them continued on with the innocent act until Connor practically blasted the truth in their faces, which meant that they couldn't deny it anymore. "She knows about the Alpha army eighteen years from now"

"...You're kidding" Gunner, despite essentially giving away that it was true with those words, somehow still seemed to believe that if he denied it hard enough that I would somehow be able to unhear those words. When I just started to softly cry again at the thought of any of them getting hurt, it really hit home that I knew, and that I was beside myself with worry because of it. "Jesus freaking Christ Connor, what were you thinking?!"

Connor opened his mouth with an angry look in his eyes, looking fully prepared to bite back that he actually hadn't started the problem with me and say that someone else had started it first, when he seemed to think a bit harder over whether it was actually a good idea to say so. After all, he still had no knowledge about who it was, and spreading the rumour that there was someone who had told me about the coming eighteen would start a witch hunt in the ten people who knew the truth... Which would help nobody.

"She accidentally stumbled onto a mission order when I had asked her to look for a specific set of instructions that Matthias had left for me a couple of days ago" Connor began to tell a lie to the both of them, covering for not just me, but also the mystery person whom Connor still didn't know. "She didn't know how the system worked yet, so I told her to just go to Matthias' office because it should have been on the computer... She accidentally stumbled onto his registry of supplies for the day we think the Alpha army is going to attack, but she only asked me about it now because she was too afraid she was going to get into trouble if Matthias heard about it"

Bobby and Gunner thankfully seemed to believe Connor's story, and the only emotion that remained in their eyes after that was just regret. Likely regret for the fact I had even managed to stumble onto the truth somehow, but more so for the fact they had hidden it from me, and now it was affecting me even more than the average person because of how close they were to me.

"Come here Mila, you look like you could use a hug" Bobby immediately ushered me into his arms, and I was more than happy to wrap my arms around his chest to keep him close to me. Who knew how long I was going to be able to hold him like that after all? "Let's call the search off today, we need to get you back to camp and have a long talk about what's going to happen, and how we're going to keep you safe"

"Bu-But the sword" I stammered a little as I vaguely remembered the original reason we had even split up in the first place, but the three of them didn't seem to care about the sword anymore.

"The sword can wait" Gunner insisted, coming around me to envelop me in another hug at my back, making me feel just that bit secure between the both of them. "We have a month to find that blasted thing, but every moment with you counts more... Especially after what you heard just now"

I couldn't form the words to thank them, instead just mutely nodding my head and trying not to cry further in front of them. Even though they clearly had the worse task out of the four of us, I still somehow was handling the news much worse than they were... But if they were annoyed by it, they weren't showing it in the slightest. We started to head back to our camp right as the sun finally set on the horizon, and I then only had the four guys to rely on to get back to camp safely without the light to guide us... And honestly, I wasn't sure how I was going to do that in eighteen years’ time.


	25. Do I have to say the words?

"Connor, I don't need a third blanket, two is enough" I tried to dissuade him from wrapping me in the third lot of warm fabric, but it seemed as if my words fell on deaf ears because he still did it anyway. I gave a soft sigh at the fact that he didn't particularly choose to listen to me, but at the same time I was reassured that his care for me was trumping everything else.

Elsewhere in the camp, Gunner was still studiously stoking the fire he had made, which was providing everyone a sense of comfort and warmth in its orange glow. Bobby on the other hand, hadn't removed himself from my side since we had gotten back, leaving the rest of the tasks to both Connor and Gunner respectively.

In the small amount of time I had to recenter my thoughts, I softly took out the glass flower from my hair as well as unclipping the ladybug bracelet from around my wrist, before I held them both in my hands along with my newest gift that I had received from Connor. Somehow the three items really brought me relief, more so than anything else I had been told or promised by the five guys I loved, a feeling that somehow I had a small piece of those three specific men with me wherever I went.

Bobby, who still was a little rattled from the fact I had learned about the Alpha army, softly plucked the glass flower from my hands and reinserted it into my hair... Sort of as if he was worried it wouldn't protect me if it wasn't always there. It was comforting to know that he still cared for me, especially after the bombshell that had been dropped only minutes beforehand.

Three minutes later our camp was entirely set up, Connor sitting a little too close to the fire for my liking (Who knows, he was likely used to the heat from him always being in a forge), cooking some meat and vegetables in some pan that he held over the hot embers. Gunner was sitting directly across me and Bobby, both him and the man directly beside me staring into the fire as though they were just eager to escape their eighteen year deadline for a little while. Me?... I suppose I still wanted answers.

"How did you guys learn about the army?" My voice sounded strange somehow, as though the mere act of breaking the silence around us warped the way it sounded. The question was enough to get all of their eyes looking back at me again, but there still was hesitation in their eyes to talk about it. It likely was a side-effect of the secret they had worked so hard to keep, that talking about it was somehow still hard even when everyone present knew about it... Sort of like mental health was always a hard subject to talk about.

"Matt told me" Connor was the first one to open up out of the three of them, likely because he was the one who I had first told about knowing the truth, so it was now easier for him to drop the stigma of not being allowed to mention it. Even as he talked, his eyes drifted back to the fire that crackled near him, which reflected an orange glow in his grey-green eyes. "I was one of the few he thought might join their movement, but hearing that such a thing was happening was... Hard to accept, at first. Once I saw the signs and clues afterwards, I couldn't really deny it any further so I felt that it was the right thing to join"

"You were the most recent addition, weren't you?" Gunner double-checked with his friend, and received a nod to confirm that his memory was telling him the truth. "Connor joined about... Five months ago, I think? I was asked to join three months before him, also by Matt because of the things I have personally experienced with Alpha, but the person who actually started the movement was..."

Gunner trailed off his words as his eyes landed on Bobby, Connor also looking towards the Beta beside me, which pointed all the clues to being that it was actually Bobby who had somehow started the idea. I wasn't really going to press him on it, but the small glance I gave to him made his stoic face and furrowed eyebrows relax, and let out a long sigh before he let me in.

"My brother Billy was killed in a car accident two years ago" He finally let out the truth, this particular news sounding even harder to mention than the news about him not having a talent. In order to give him support, I wriggled one of my hands as best I could out from underneath the three layers of blanket that I had on to hold the hand he had permanently wrapped around my back, doing my best to communicate that I cared in the way I held his fingers close. "The hovercar came completely out of nowhere as he was crossing a street to get to us, just to reach the other side of the street to go watch a holomovie... To just..."

"...He didn't survive, from what Matt told me" Connor took on the role of continuing on the story, especially after Bobby seemed to become too overcome with emotions to continue speaking. "They took the driver to court for manslaughter, and both the police and the lawyer they had hired at the time were so certain that they would get a conviction because of all of the evidence they had. They had surveillance footage, the actual hovercar that hit Billy, several eyewitnesses ranging from Matt, Byran, Jfred, Bobby, Kevin and Marvin, not to mention several strangers who could attest that the driver had plenty of time to stop..."

Somehow, the more Connor explained, the worse of a feeling I was getting in my gut about what the outcome was. Both the fact that all of the evidence sounded airtight and the way Bobby's hand was clenching tighter onto my hand was giving away that the result was... Far from what they were hoping for.

"...There were thirteen Alpha on the jury" Bobby finally seemed to find his words, but it was clear that his words were not said without anger in them. Only after I flinched at the intensity of his grip did he seem to relent on it, looking apologetic for a brief moment for causing me harm. "The result came back for a eighty-two percent result in favour of the driver, and he was released back into the public on the grounds that he was not at fault"

"Eighty-two percent, that's about... Oh god, that's almost exactly thirteen members of the jury" My mind was already doing the calculations necessary to figure out how much of a sixteen man jury that would equal, and it was clear from the upset look in all three of their eyes that I was on the exact same mind-set as they would have been when they heard it first. "The driver, was he... An Alpha?"

Their lack of response gave away that it was the truth, which hit hard for me, especially after our own encounter with a court case. I could only guess how much harder it would have been for Bobby to hear it himself at the time, likely magnified to a much higher scale than anything I could imagine.

"I did some more digging about a year after that, and found out that there had recently been a report of a gigantic group of people stealing battlecruisers from our biggest spaceport. About five were stolen, and each one at its maximum capacity could hold a billion people" Bobby, now that we were on an easier part of the topic, started to really get into gear with explaining things as though he felt he had to justify why he had begun this task of fighting a gigantic army. "Of course, I didn't know it was entirely a group of Alpha, but the first people I told was Matt, Jfred and Bryan, who told me what they knew"

"To this day, they still say that they learnt about it from some kind of time traveller, but that's not exactly important" Gunner spoke up next, as he likely had been briefed on the same information as the other two had. "Me, Connor, Tanner and Paul learned about it much later, but Bobby was informed first"

"They apparently have some friends on Pandora who are steadily building up the planet to repel, or at least damage the army enough to not be a threat after the first wave" Bobby sighed once more, obviously thinking just like I was that it wasn't right to just leave it to a single planet to handle such a monumentous task. "I told them that it wasn't good enough to just leave it to them so we could have a happy ignorant life here on Alfu, that if we were doing nothing I would literally be heading to Pandora to join the fight. The very next day Matt had squared his shoulders and made the decision to start our own professional military force to help on that day"

"So in a way, you're the one to start this movement?" I asked him, and for a moment there was a slight glimmer of pride in his eyes, but it got snuffed out the moment it arrived. I was eagre to see that pride return, regardless of what I had rashly said to Connor about how I didn't care about them doing the right thing. "That's actually amazing Bobby, I'm really proud of you"

Just like I had hoped, that pride did actually return for a brief moment longer, but sadly it left just as soon with the realisation that he, just like the others, would have to leave me behind on the day they would go charging into danger. It was a small victory, but with an overhanging timeline of eighteen years I supposed every little victory counted in its own way. There was still one question plaguing my mind however, once that I had thought at the time was a very small one... Until I actually got told the new information.

"How did they even manage to steal five battlecruisers?" I mumbled softly to myself, the question not even exactly meaning to be asked to the others but more to myself. It apparently was plenty loud enough for Connor to hear me, and he readily had the answer to it.

"They set fire to a siege engine factory not far away, I think it was called the Ignis factory. Everyone was so busy getting the pilots out and the fire out that they took most of the security away from the main ships being stored in the spaceport" He explained casually, not really seeing me freeze until he lifted his eyes away from the meat he was poking and seeing the shock in my eyes. "...Mila? What's wrong?"

It seemed like the other two had also not noticed me freezing in utter surprise, as they only started to look at me and look concerned when Connor had asked me what was wrong. The name of the factory... Was familiar to me.

"That's the name of the siege engine factory my dad went to a year ago when a fire broke out" My voice almost sounded robotic when I recited the conclusion I had come to in my mind, in utter disbelief of the fact that my father’s death somehow had a connection in the army as much as Bobby's brother did. "He died from smoke inhalation because he went in to save the young pilots still in the machines"

Unlike all the other times that they would have offered me condolences or would have said how sorry they were that I had to go through such an experience, this time they remained silent as they gave me time to process it. It was actually greatly appreciated, to not be overloaded by sudden sounds or voices, as they knew that there was no way they could say any words to make the news any softer. That time to think paved it's way to a surprisingly angry resolution in my mind, quite unnatural for my class type, but likely very normal for the situation.

"I'm joining the group to fight the Alpha army" I made my decision on the spot, but I could already see several worried thoughts flit by in the three guys eyes. I could even spy Gunner's mouth open to try and dissuade me from truly being unable to back out of my decision, but there was no way I was going to back out anymore. "No! Don't go and tell me that it's "too dangerous" for me to do it when you guys are going to be sacrificing your lives for the very same thing! They got my dad killed for five ships!"

"Mila, this isn't a question of you might die, it's most likely going to be a situation of you  _will_ die" Connor was the only one trying to dissuade me after a while, as I could see that Bobby couldn't really give me any reasons not to... Not after the story he had just told, and I supposed that Gunner was under the same reasoning. The both of them had joined because of someone close to them being killed and then likely getting away with the deed by Alpha, so they knew all too well how I felt. Connor was the only one uncertain, as he had only joined under the guise of that it was the right thing to do and because he had wanted to protect me, one of which was now under threat because of my decision. "Five billion Alpha is the estimation of what we're going to be facing, and even with your addition we currently would only have eleven"

"I know, but imagine how horrifying it would be for me if you guys charged off to war and you still failed to do enough to stop them. Not only would I lose all of you, but then I'd still be treated like some personal doll of theirs because of my class type" I tried my best to calm down and give him reasonable explanations for why I was joining, even though I personally felt something such as 'I want to' should have been enough for a good cause. "I'd rather give my life to ensure nothing like what happened to my dad, to Bobby's brother, to Gunner's friend, will happen to others... And if I'm allowed to be a little selfish, I'd also like it if my added help to the Prevention of Widespread Chaos managed to let some of you guys live. Like Matthias said for this mission to find the sword, extra hands couldn't hurt"

Something told me from the look in Connor's eyes that he wasn't one hundred percent satisfied with the result; the overhanging fear of me dying was enough to want to reject it outright. But at the same time, he knew he couldn't turn me away when I had begged the same of him only a couple of minutes before returning to camp.

"Sounds like you've truly made up your mind" Bobby sounded a little conflicted on the matter as well, as he likely also didn't want to see me hurt because of my decision to join. But at the same time there was a slight hint of hope hanging around in his words, the idea of me being at his side in that fight giving him a sense of courage.

"We won't be doing anything if we don't get any rest however" Gunner did bring us back down to Alfu for a moment, carefully retrieving the pan of food that Connor had nearly burnt in the current excitement swirling around. The food looked decent enough, so he started to divide it out onto different plates, obviously steeling himself for both the realisation that I was going to be fighting alongside them and the fact that the three of them were still going to have to tell Matthias that they had accidentally told me the news (Connor knew otherwise, but I honestly didn't think the chances were high that he was going to spill that someone had actually purposely told me about it). "We need to eat, get some proper rest and find that sword before anything can happen further"

"I think it's most likely that the church contains the sword" Connor put forward his deduction, which Bobby, Gunner and I could agree with the most. Bobby and I had no luck with finding any location on the pebble beach that would even contain the sword without destroying it (Such as the ocean itself) and Gunner didn't seem to have had any luck with finding ground that had been disturbed. The most likely location had to be the church then, as from what I could tell at the time, Connor had only looked around the outside at what kind of material the brick had been made of. "I took a quick look inside the church, and it looks to go much deeper than you can tell from the outside. I didn't go much further in yet, because of the remote possibility of traps being in them, so I think we should investigate it first thing once the sun has risen"

"Sounds good to me" I agreed with the plan, somehow already excited to get started on preparing for the next eighteen years. In an odd way, it gave me a sense of purpose, a goal to strive for rather than just... I don't know, exist for no reason. And even better, my addition was not only going to make our solar system a better place, but give the ten people going with me a better chance to survive. "Let's find that sword!"

Somehow my small note of excitement and upbeat attitude did pass on to the other three, who each gave a small cheer at my enthusiastic demeanour before they all dug into the food. It didn't take us long to eat it quite happily and trudge off to bed, tired from all the emotional discussions and tears we had shed that day, but somehow still having some hope for the next day cycle that was coming.

...What we didn't see after going to bed however, was the trail of lit torches and flashlights that entered the church before seemingly vanishing into the dark of night.


	26. Electric chapel

The very moment we woke, we set off for the church, Connor's trusty satchel slung over his shoulder while the other two men carried what I could only assume was a first aid kit and a small bag of food. Even with my admittance that I was going to be joining them in eighteen years’ time, they still insisted that I be the one at the back of the group as we descended a long staircase into the main atrium of the church, it being only just big enough for us to go down in a single file manner.

"Be careful of pressure plates as you step on tiles" Connor warned us all, him leading our group at a careful pace even though he certainly was not checking each step thoroughly. His heavier footsteps were reassuring somehow, likely down to the fact it was just so much easier to recognise him even if somehow the place would become dark enough that I had to rely on their footsteps alone. "I doubt tripwires will be here, as the church looks old enough for rope to have decayed far too much in the meantime, but it couldn't hurt to be careful"

"If you do happen to step on one, then there's only really two things you do if the trap isn't obvious" Gunner turned his head to speak specifically to me, letting his attention wander away from what was ahead of us. Even though he occasionally had to look around Bobby to actually see me, it was clear that the information he was talking about was mostly directed at me. Bobby and Connor likely already knew things about pressure plates, as occasionally searching abandoned ruins was a common thing for people on Alfu to do. "If the stone rumbles underneath your feet, then you need to hurriedly back away as the floor will likely disappear from under you. If it doesn't rumble, then you need to hit the floor, as most projectile traps aim for chest or higher"

"What happens if I have to run away from a boulder rumbling after me?" I tried to sprinkle in a small bit of humour with their oddly serious attitude since the previous day cycle, and it seemed to have worked as they laughed once they realised I was referencing an old beloved holomovie.

"Don't worry, I don't think they have those here" Bobby's smile was still obvious on his face as he turned slightly to assure me that something like that wasn't going to happen to me. Even so, I still reached out my hand to hold one of his as we descended further down the stairs, eagre to feel his warmth and support. If the way he softly smiled and linked his fingers in mine was anything to go by, he was just as happy as I was with our contact.

"One of you packed a flashlight, right?" Connor double-checked with Gunner directly behind him, and he got a nod of the head. It was understandable that he wanted to make sure that we had the proper light necessary to search, as the further down the stairs we got the darker it was becoming. "Oh, there's a room down a couple more steps"

Reaching a sort of altar room with several pews, I gratefully took note of the stained glass windows in the sides of the rooms, where there still was some light from outdoors coming in. The vast size of the altar room was impressive, the grey stone bricks being covered in soft hues of green because of the long forgotten ivy crawling up them. While I was completely blown away by the architecture, the three men I had come with instead seemed really interested in the altar itself, pressing close to the slightly faded white pedestal to inspect it. Directly behind said pedestal was a giant statue of a soldier in armour, seemingly carved out of marble with a faded metal sword nestled in its gloved hands.

After I had gotten my fill of the grandiose room, I too joined them beside the pedestal, immediately noticing the dull looking metal sword that had been stabbed into it. For a moment I got excited at the sight of the sword there, as there was obvious wiggle room around the sword itself so that it could be shifted or even pulled out of the pedestal, but all of those hopes got dashed the moment Connor ran his finger along the blade with a disappointed look.

"I sure hope this isn't supposed to be the sword" Connor mumbled disapprovingly, lifting his finger away from the blade to note that it hadn't even broken the very first layer of the skin there. Now that he had mentioned it, the sword was looking particularly dull, not to mention the fact it looked to have been made of some ancient material that was likely easily overshadowed by a laserblade. "I think it's made of iron, which I haven't seen used for a sword in... God, I can't even remember when that was anymore"

"There's an inscription right below it" Bobby pointed out the part that he had taken note of, which was a little plaque that held the words 'Lift the sword to find your destiny'. "...Surely it's not that easy, right?"

Even though he sounded really uncertain with the idea of the riddle being ridiculously easy to solve, all he had to do was wriggle the sword slightly in the pedestal until it was shifted upwards from its original position, when a loud click could be heard from the pedestal. Still being a little wary of traps, the four of us shifted slightly backwards as the pedestal began to rumble, before the entire altar harmlessly shifted towards our left to open up a new passage.

"Apparently it is that easy" Gunner didn't seem as bothered as Connor or Bobby did with the revelation, patting the both of them on the back before he began to walk forward to go down a new flight of stairs for everyone to descend. Connor sighed a little with the more carefree attitude of Gunner, before he too began to trudge after him, which left just me and Bobby a little uneasy. "Come on guys, we're wasting daylight"

"Wait, shouldn't we thoroughly search this room before moving on?" I suggested, as there were several other things in the altar room that I thought were at least important to note. Bobby agreed with me clearly, coming to stand beside me and not making a single move to join Gunner and Connor, who already were halfway down the next set of stairs before they stopped to look back at the both of us. "For example, that weird statue of a knight might have the sword"

The moment I shifted my head to look directly into the eyes of the soldier, something odd happened. Firstly the holes where the eyes were supposed to be located suddenly began to shine with a white light, with a guttural growl rumbling from its chest despite the fact we were certain it was nowhere near capable of making such a noise. The worst development had to however be that the soldier began to shift and move, as well as the sword popping out of the groove in the altar, which soon started to make the altar shift back to its original position over the passageway.

"Hey!" Connor called out in surprise, both him and Gunner scrambling up the stairs in an attempt to beat the altar before it closed them in. They just barely didn't manage to, the altar shifting fully over the passageway, with the sword tumbling free from the pedestal and landing with a loud clang on the ground.

Despite the fact we couldn't really verify it on the spot, we could tell that the stone soldier was likely not good for us in the slightest, the rumbling marble stone creaking loudly as it started to shift after us.

"Uh, please tell me you have a weapon on you!" I asked Bobby, but the fact that he was only carrying the little first aid kit and had relatively skin tight clothing told me otherwise. My body immediately shifted into a flight or fight situation like it had when I was under attack by Tadashi, the adrenaline causing my brain to shift into overdrive and think much faster than before. Like with the fight against Tadashi, I was thinking more than I was going to be running all over the show, so my eyes zipped around our environment for something he could use, right up until my eyes landed on the iron sword that had been stuck in the pedestal. "The iron sword Bobby!"

Bobby was luckily just as much in emergency mode as I was, as his first instinct was to leap forward into a roll so that he could reach the sword before the stone soldier could stand in his way. Even when the marble stone was about in range to be able to swing its own sword at him, it proceeded to rumble past him in what seemed to be a beeline directly for me. I experimentally took a couple of steps to the right, and true enough the stone soldier shifted its course so that it was still aiming for me.

"It's going for me; you take it out while it has its back turned to you!" I gave him the command without really thinking too much on it, as I didn't really think he was going to start arguing with me about who was supposed to be in charge there. He did have something to say back however, as he looked down at the iron sword in his hands and back over to the marble soldier with a look of uncertainty in his eyes.

"All I have is this! How am I supposed to cut through marble with a sword?!" Bobby asked me in utter surprise, and I had to admit that I didn't really know the knowledge for that. The passageway separating me and Bobby from Connor and Gunner was apparently not as airtight as we thought initially, as soon we heard some extra advice from them.

"Marble is a relatively soft stone, you'd be surprised how easy it is if you get a good swing on a thin piece of it!" We just barely managed to make out that Connor had provided that helpful information, which made Bobby hold onto the iron sword with a more confident grip behind it as he looked over the soldier for a weak point. "You need to find the thinnest point however, and it still might take you a couple of swings!"

I started to backpedal away from the soldier as it began to loom over me, luckily finding out that as long as I didn't trip I was able to keep pace with it even though I was slower in proceeding backwards than if I did forwards. In an emergency I knew I could swivel around and fully start to run away from it, which was a lot more helpful in making sure that I didn't freak out in the situation. Even as I came to that realisation however, Bobby was still looking it up and down and seemingly not finding anything that could count as the 'weak point' of it.

"Look carefully Bobby, some parts have extra folds in it like armour" I tried my best to hide the slowly rising panic in my voice, pointing slowly over to points in the stone like the shoulder pads or gauntlets. His eyes sharply drew to whatever I was pointing at, which meant that he understood that those were definitely not the points to aim for. "You need to treat this thing like it was a human wearing armour, go for the gaps and vulnerable spots"

While I had been referring to him going for the back of the knees, as that was a big thing I knew about with human armour, his eyes quickly zipped over the legs and seemed to find nothing for him to go for. This appeared to be the same for the arms and hands, but at the very least he seemed to find something on the back of the neck.

"I need something to jump off of" He stated that fact aloud, but frankly there wasn't much for him to jump on in the room. There was the pedestal, but that wouldn't help him if he wanted to do a running jump because it was about as high as his chest.

"What about the pews?" I suggested to him as I circled around the marble soldier slightly to make the hulking creation face with its back to him. Bobby immediately tried my suggestion, but the sudden sound of shattering wood wasn't comforting in the slightest.

"It's all completely rotten!" Bobby growled in frustration as he pried his leg free from the rotten remains of the pew he had just experimentally placed a foot on. He looked back over to me and the soldier just to make sure I wasn't in range to have my head cut off, but he didn't like the look of how close it was getting to me. "...Damn it. I'm going to have to just jump it from the ground!"

"Are you stupid?! That thing was about two and a half times your size; you're never going to be able to reach it from the floor!" Gunner barely managed to shout that through the floor, and I sadly had to agree with him. There arguably was no way for him to be able to leap such a great height and reach the back of the soldiers neck, especially not with the fact that high jumping was likely one of the sports he had been tested for as his talent. It was impossible for a Beta to do that unless they had a talent somehow to do with their legs, it simply was so.

And so, I watched with horror as he took a number of steps back to get a running start on the marble soldier, ran with all his might and... Completely took me by surprise by actually managing to jump up an inhuman amount of height in a single jump. Not only did he successfully manage to jump up high enough to actually reach the neck, he had jumped high enough to clear something that was three times his height. While I watched on with a flabbergasted look on my face, he swung the iron sword like it was a katana through the air with such force that the head of the marble soldier got cut cleanly off the shoulders of the massive beast.

After landing momentarily on the shoulders of the of the now decapitated marble soldier, he remained on there for a brief moment as the statue paused in its constant pursuit of me, as if it was just now handling the fact it had been decapitated. It was well and truly done however, the old marble slowly sliding off the shoulders and the rest of the body crashing down with it, sending tremors through the ground with both body parts slamming into the ground with great force right after Bobby leaped to safety off it.

"...Wow" There wasn't much else I could say in the situation; utterly awed by the display he had shown me. Had anyone else told me that someone was capable of jumping three times their height and slashing through a marble statue, I would have assumed it was either an Alpha or some wild story someone had made up, and yet here Bobby was after doing so.

"You okay?" Bobby asked, obviously wanting to make sure that I was fine. I nodded my head mutely, and he just smiled at me in a relieved manner. "Good, I didn't want that thing anywhere near you if I could help it"

"Hey, are you guys okay in there?! We heard a thudding noise, but nothing else!" Connor began to yell through the floor of the pedestal again, as me and Bobby had spoken only in soft voices after our victory. "I'm serious, if you guys don't open this door within three seconds I'm getting out my sledgehammer!"

"Why didn't you just break out the sledgehammer in the first place?!" We could hear Gunner get upset at Connor's strange lack of correct timing as we made our way back over to the pedestal in a hurry, with Bobby reinserting the sword in the groove in the hopes it would open back up for us. Luckily it was all that it needed for the pedestal to slide out of the way again, with the two guys we had been separated from looking endlessly reassured now that we were safe in front of them once again. "Oh thank goodness, you guys are okay. What even happened?"

"I don't know, one moment I was looking at the statue behind the passageway, and then I was..." I trailed off near the end of my sentence when my eyes drifted back to where the statue had originally been standing and noticed a small little plaque on the podium where the soldier had been standing. My curiosity got the better of me, which led me to carefully tiptoe around the opened passageway to inspect it. It was exactly like the one that had been on the altar, and the writing also seemed suspiciously similar to the engraving in the small beach-side cave me and Bobby had investigated the previous day cycle, so it didn't surprise me in the slightest to see that it had a similar engraving that presented quite loud and clear that 'the weak must not gaze upon the knight'. "Oh great, not only are a whole bunch of Alpha classist, but now some ancient civilization was too. This thing triggered because I looked at it, I just don't know if it was aiming for my class type or my gender"

"I'm not too worried about that, seeing as the thing seems to be deader than a doorknob, but I am wondering how on Alfu Bobby managed to take care of that statue" Connor diverted the attention back to the obvious, carefully giving me a hand as I came back to make sure I had my balance. I was quite happy when that hand remained with me even as he kept speaking, with Bobby sheepishly scratching the back of his head with all of our attention on him. "Seriously man, last we heard from the both of you, you were talking nonsense about jumping from the ground up to get that statue... With nothing but an iron sword in your hands, might I add. We hear nothing but a whole bunch of thudding later, and apparently you've defeated it"

"I... Don't really know what happened, I just did what I needed to do to keep Mila safe" Bobby still was unsure how to explain his miraculous set of feats, especially the notion of being able to slice cleanly through marble in a single swipe. I honestly was just willing to let it go myself, especially with the soft smile he directed my way when he spoke of his need to protect me. Call me old fashioned if you will, but to me it was romantic to see that he was able to call on things he didn't even know about just to protect me.

"Last I checked Beta talents don't suddenly appear out of nowhere because of someone being in danger" Connor, our ever present sceptic did of course have something to say about it all, but there wasn't much he could do beyond saying that. After he got a simple shrug of the shoulders from Bobby on the specifications on how he managed to pull that off, Connor seemed to take a deep breath in and let it go for the time being. "...Whatever, I'm just glad you guys are safe"

He accentuated those words with a gentle squeeze of the hand, allowing his eyes to show a slight hint of worry that he must have felt in the situation, trapped underneath the floor and unable to really help me or Bobby in the slightest. I squeezed his hand back to show that I was completely fine, both in the physical sense and the mental kind, which he seemed grateful to notice. Something weird was still going on with Gunner since the previous day cycle, him turning around for a moment once he had seen Bobby and Connor's intimate acts with me, almost looking... Jealous somehow.

"I'm afraid I've got some bad news" Gunner sharply brought back the tone of our talk back to a serious one, gesturing for us to follow him down to look at something just a bit down the stairs of the passageway. With a bit of an anxious look back at the pedestal (Especially with the idea that somehow it was going to shut on us again), I followed directly behind Gunner with the other two guys bringing up the rear.

Gunner seemed to look a slight bit surprised when I gently placed my hands on his shoulder blades for support, his reassuring smile being just a tad bit off when he showed it to me next. Something most definitely was going on in his head, but he really didn't seem intent on telling anyone what it was about, and that concerned me greatly... I knew it was going to be like going behind his back, but some part of my brain was telling me that I had to ask Blaire what was going in his appointments to make sure he wasn't going down a dark path that I couldn't help him out of.

Halfway down the staircase was a small little section of flat stone, one where people could stop for a moment before adventuring onward into the depths or to stop for a breather in case they were tired coming from the bottom. It looked barely big enough for six people to stop on and rest comfortably, but that wasn't the main reason we had been stopped there by Gunner. In the earlier excitement he somehow had managed to look down at where we were going, and noticed a small still red hot glowing pile of embers where a little campfire had been set up and subsequently abandoned.

"We're not alone here" Gunner warned the rest of us, already stretching his shoulders and legs in preparation for whatever we were going to face. He wasn't alone in getting ready, Connor picking out his aforementioned sledgehammer for protection, handing Bobby a retractable spear before he finally handed me the glove with metal tips that he had shown me on the very first day I had been introduced to the lot of them.

Somehow every noise in the building, no matter how natural it should seem, was eerie from that point on as we descended further into the dark depths.


	27. Swords of Truth

A click of the flashlight brought a bright beam of light from Gunner's right hand, illuminating the darkness around us. We had been in the dark for a couple of minutes since then, but I had the feeling that Gunner only proceeded to use the flashlight once he was sure that he couldn't hear anyone rummaging around in front of us.

"Stairs end here, watch your step" Gunner warned us ahead of time as he finally came up to a flat area, gratefully so, as I was worried about how far down the actual chambers would be and the risk of them being caved in by the sheer amount of salt rock it had been embedded in. The flat area we had come to was directly in front of a really large rusted set of iron doors, standing impressively in our way at approximately four times our size. "This old civilisation sure does like their iron, don't they?"

"How do we even open it?" Bobby asked himself, and somewhat to the rest of us as well as he no doubt was leaving more of the thinking to me, pausing for a moment to rest on his retractable spear. "What do you think Mila, is there a trick to it?"

"I got a quicker way of opening it" Connor put a stop to anyone's plans to pore over the door by gently moving the rest of us out of his way and swinging his sledgehammer around experimentally. The rest of us could clearly tell what he was aiming to do, but Gunner was the only one that sounded like he was trying to protest the idea, but that came too late before Connor used his impressive muscles to swing the sledgehammer at the iron door. Hitting both doors in their weakest point (The hinges), the old rusted iron gave way to the far more impressive material that the sledgehammer was swinging at them, which caused them to come crashing down harmlessly towards the inside of the new entrance Connor had opened up for us. Quite pleased with himself, he turned around expecting praise from the rest of us but noticed quite obviously that me and Bobby looked really unsure with his decision, while Gunner looked very close to an emotion like anger. "...What? What's wrong?"

"Connor, you idiot! We could have opened the door normally and we likely would have been fine!" Gunner was naturally the first one to chastise his more zealous teammate, as Gunner had likely noticed the very same thing about the door as I had, purposefully angling his flashlight down at the ground to prove his point. "Look down simpleton! There are obvious track marks in the dust, which means this door was able to be opened perfectly fine without your destructive forces!"

True enough, when Connor and Bobby looked down they could see two clear swaths in the long settled dust that indicated that the doors had been opened very recently before they had been shut again. And, because there was a clear lack of dead bodies or blood, it seemed extremely unlikely that opening the door triggered any sort of trap. With an even more embarrassed look on his face than what Bobby had when he admitted that he didn't know how he had rescued me, Connor apologised quietly for his rash decision with obvious regret for his actions.

"We don't have time to stand around and point fingers" At first I was convinced that Bobby was saying that to help ease the amount of blame that was being directed at Connor, but the more I listened to it the more I was getting the impression that he was stoically just pointing out facts to get everyone back on track. It was very authoritative, but more importantly it was being impartial, showing that side of him that was prepared to actually fight five billion Alpha with an iron will. "If someone is hanging around still, then there's a chance that they heard the doors crash to the floor so we need to move on"

"Due to our depth underground, I think it's more likely that they would have heard the marble soldier than these doors" Unlike Bobby, I was not at all impartial in my words, clearly coming to Connor's defence so that he wouldn't carry around this feeling of how he had 'caused the mission to fail'. Unfortunately my words did also come with the side effect of making it seem like I was diverging the blame onto Bobby, but it was clear by the stoic nod of his head that Bobby agreed with me that he likely had also drawn people’s attention. It was so unlike the Bobby I had come to know, who would have likely jokingly feigned hurt at being blamed for something like this, that I found myself dwelling on it a bit longer than was really necessary. "...But it doesn't matter; Bobby is right. If the sword is in here, then we need to move on before we even give whoever it is a chance to find us"

We didn't need much else than that, pressing on into the newly opened pathway. Unlike before when I had lingered directly behind Gunner, my distracted mind meant that I dawdled a little behind the other three and was essentially back at the rear of the group like I had been when we had first entered the church. The most notable thing clinging to my thoughts was the startling and distinctly upsetting realisation that the men I had come to know were... Far from their actual personalities, which were only just then starting to reveal themselves to me.

Sure, Connor still sort of had the bristly exterior that he held when I had first met him, but it was steadily being shed in front of me to reveal that he actually was very insecure about himself and his abilities. Whether it came down to his relationship to me, or taking on far too much blame than was necessary for a mistake (Now that I think about it, Tanner had an unhealthy amount of this too), Connor was nowhere near the confident man that his first meeting had conveyed. Losing the harsh tone and spiky words certainly wasn't bad, but somehow something about it was bothering me.

Gunner too was different, as gone was the overly confident persona he displayed on an almost permanent basis, instead shifting himself to be someone who was very secretive about... Well, frankly, everything. He hadn't told me anything about his friend who had been killed by Alpha despite me going through a similar situation with them, his emotions seemed all over the place when it didn't make much sense for them to be and worst of all, he was still seemingly retracting on himself despite the previous day cycle when I had told him that I could notice those changes. It was like watching an actor play a character on a stage, but the longer you watched the more obvious that his mask was slipping to reveal an entirely different character underneath.

Possibly the weirdest was Bobby, as so far he had been the enigma of the three of them. Only with the power of hindsight could I now sharply notice the strange differences between his friendly side and his soldier-like attitude, where like the flip of a switch he would change from a bubbly friendly man who could do no wrong to someone more resembling a general, with a calculating mind-set behind his decisions.

But the more I thought about it, I was coming to the realisation that I wasn't even bothered by the fact their personalities were different from what they had first shown me, as there was actually no real way for me to be attached to their personalities in the week I had known them. No, it seemed that the problem came more down to the fact that they even had felt the need to lie to me about who they truly were, even after we started to go behind Matthias' back about the 'no relationships' rule. They had become to accustomed to keeping the Alpha army under wraps that they each had subconsciously created a kind of 'imitation' of themselves that they could show in public to strangers and casual acquaintances, while keeping their actual selves under some kind of figurative lock and key.

...They were so ingrained to wear that public persona that they were still somehow having difficulty with showing their actual personalities to me, even after we had started dating and  _especially_ after learning about the Alpha army.

"You guys don't have to keep up the act around me anymore, you know" I quickly brought the subject up before I could lose my nerve about it, the three of them angling their faces to look at me behind them despite Gunner not sweeping the flashlight around to see the look in my eyes. "It's okay to be sad or worried about what's coming"

My words seemed to not really bother Connor or Gunner, who seemingly mulled the words over but didn't find it necessary to respond to it. Bobby on the other hand did seem receptive to the words, a slight hint of worry present on his face from what I could barely make out in the darkness.

"...I kind of thought you'd mind" He admitted, showing that I at least had gotten his weird personality flipping correct.

"You've seen me cry more times than anyone else, I'm not bothered with showing emotions to you guys anymore" I reminded him with a slight hint of a self-deprecating laugh, one which funnily enough all three of them seemed to return with the same emotion in them as well. "I can handle it"

It took a couple of seconds for them to truly accept those following words, but this time there most definitely a reaction from each of them. The most obvious had to have come from Bobby, who shut his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath in to settle any remaining nerves he had about showing me all of him, before they opened sharply with a renewed vigor behind them. Gone was the bright hopeful almost doe-eyed look in them, instead containing a rough no-nonsense look to them. It wasn't just his outwardly demeanour that had changed, as it was shown most evidently a second later as he reached out one of his hands to tug me forward until I was walking side by side with him rather than trailing behind the three of them.

"Sorry, I just don't like the idea of you lingering at the back and possibly being snatched by anyone sneaking up behind us" Bobby explained his protective nature, which did thoroughly explain why he felt the need to make sure I was beside him. "Since Billy was killed, I've found that my attitude has kind of drifted away from who I was before then... But what we show others, and for a long time to you, isn't fake. It's just... A little exaggerated"

Connor, who was now at the back of the group rather than me, had seemingly also changed his attitude to show his actual emotions. He was just entirely anxious, his eyes screaming that he actually was fearful of what the future held for us all since I had decided to join them. He did have a lot more to lose now that I was with them, which did make sense, but I honestly was grateful to notice that his emotions weren't hidden behind a rough exterior.

Gunner did also show signs in front of me and Bobby, showing potentially what would be seen as the ugliest emotion, a deep frown marring his features at the thought of just being around Alpha (Beyond Jfred and Bryan, I hoped). But like Bobby had described, the friendly over confident Gunner wasn't completely gone, as he was still able to show me a small reserved smile when his eyes glanced my way for a brief moment.

"Ah, there's something up ahead" I unfortunately didn't get a chance to respond to any of them about how I felt about their new demeanours, Gunner calling out that we were nearing another room. Unlike everything else we had encountered, this one truly did seem to be the end of the road, as there wasn't anything even remotely looking like a door that would lead onwards. Absolutely everything was covered in rust in this room, several long spires of metal seemingly holding a dangerous looking roof from collapsing over our heads. But despite the rusted metal spires and the equally rusted metal gates stopping us from reaching the centre of the room, there was a bright shining white light that was coming from the centre of the room that drew our attention to it. In the very middle of the shining light was a sword, embedded halfway into a stone pedestal that was surrounded by several thorny vines, the purple in the thorns looking threateningly poisonous for anyone who dared to come close. "Now, I'm not usually a betting man, but I'm willing to bet that's our sword right there"

"The only problem is how we're actually going to get to it" I sighed, paying especially close attention to the two metal gates that stood in our way. There was a sizable gap at the top of them, looking tall enough to let a reasonably sized person to climb over without any trouble, but the gates themselves were covered in the same thorn covered vines. "I don't think we can knock the gates down, because they seem to be connected to those spires in the roof"

"So they are" Bobby agreed with me, but I had to try my hardest to not laugh at the slightly disappointed look on Connor's face at the realisation that brute force wasn't going to help us out this time. "Mila's the only one wearing gloves here too, so it's not like we can all go climbing over this either"

"Not to mention the fact those gloves aren't resistant to blades or sharp objects, so she'd still get pricked with whatever these things are, so it's not like she's immune to whatever these things do" Connor felt he had to quickly remind us before some hair-brained plan was hatched for me to go climbing over the vines, not even including the fact that I was wearing a  _single_ glove, not a pair. He then tried to use his sledgehammer to try and pull the vines away from the gate, but they were so ingrained that it might as well have been fruitless to suggest trying to cut them all down. "I don't suppose you can jump to the gap between the gate and the roof Bobby?"

"We don't even know how Bobby managed to do that with that marble soldier earlier, I think it's too risky to make him try it again" Gunner shot down the idea immediately, completely missing the fact that Bobby was tensing his legs in preparation to try it. "I think we should-

Bobby quickly caused him to shut up by pulling off the same feat as he had done only about ten minutes beforehand, him shooting up like some kind of human rocket to about three times his height once more, landing with grace on the delicate rusted beam that was the top of the gate like he had somehow gained a cat's reflexes.

"Did it" Bobby didn't seem to dwell on how on Alfu he had managed to pull it off once more, crouching a little on the beam to look down at us below him, letting his thick shoes easily crunch the vines under his feet without pricking him at all.

"...Well then, consider me impressed" Gunner had to admit that it was actually another thing to see it in person, just as awestruck as I had been the first time I saw it. "Connor, send Mila up to him and let the both of them go forward to try and get the sword. Even if she isn't wearing stab resistant gloves, it's still much better than Bobby rummaging around with his bare hands"

"Bobby, I know it's a bit of an uncomfortable topic for you, but did you ever get checked for high-jumping as your talent?" Connor was thinking exactly along the same lines as I had earlier, gently picking me up bridal style before using his muscles to throw me up to a reasonable height for Bobby to catch me. Bobby's reaction time didn't disappoint, him catching me at just the right time as I reached the arc of my flight, which honestly was a much comfier landing in his arms than the time I dangled from a street lamp.

"I did, but they had some disagreements between the judging committee about whether I truly counted in having a talent" Bobby seemed to vaguely recount a memory in his mind as he carefully turned around on the beam with me in his arms, and I do have to admit that I was a little bit afraid by how distracted his eyes looked as he jumped to the next gap in the gate, which cleared a whole section of thorny vines nicely. "It probably didn't help that they actually had someone in my group who did qualify for the talent, while I floundered on certain parts of the test. I was the one who could get the best height on my jumps, just barely beating the guy who had gotten the talent by... About three inches? But I always knocked over the beam somehow even if I was extremely careful"

"Surely you managed to get over the beam sometimes?" Gunner somehow felt that the story didn't make sense, which I did agree with. If he could jump over three times his height, then surely getting his entire body over a beam should have been a cakewalk.

"Nope, I mean it literally when I say that I  _always_ managed to knock over the beam" We were all completely enraptured with his story, even me as he gently jumped down from the second gate to the floor in the centre of the room where the thorns seemed to be the least concentrated. I had expected a loud landing when his feet contacted the floor, it was the softest noise I had ever heard before, being so whisper quiet that I would have completely missed it had I not been specifically listening for it. "Honestly, I think it was the backwards jumping that rattled me, I always somehow got the angle wrong and would bang into the beam on my way down. They determined after eighteen tries that they couldn't give me a talent for it if I always managed to get the beam off"

So not only was he bothered by the jumping backwards, he also somehow had difficulty with his descent if he didn't have something specific to aim for. My mind was working fast, linking all of the things I had learned so far about him, and for some reason my mind also included the time he had managed to hit Kevin from across the room in the garage when I had first met him. It had struck me as a particularly odd thing, one that wouldn't just be an average skill that anyone could pick up, so it had to mean something.

He could leap impressive heights as long as he was facing them and if he had a specific location in mind, his landings were near silent whether it came from him jumping up or back down to the ground, he was massively skilled with small thrown projectiles and I had noticed that he had an affinity for swords (Or stun batons, now that I think about that too) as long as he wielded them like an ancient race of Asian warriors...

...There was a small sliver of a light-bulb moment there, where my mind nearly connected the dots to something I had read a long time ago in my school days, but it was gone just as soon as it had appeared. Whatever my mind had inadvertently linked was gone like the wind, a constant feeling of something being on the tip of my tongue but being unable to find it.

"Well, whatever it is, we should talk about it once we're off these islands" Gunner determined that the matter was over, at least for the time being, and gently directed with his finger over to the sword just a couple of steps away from me and Bobby. "Bobby, you should let Mila go get the sword while you wait for her there"

"What?! Why on Alfu would that-

"You're wearing short sleeves, genius" Connor pointed out the glaring problem with Bobby moving closer to the sword, as evidenced by the fact that he was still walking around in a short sleeved black shirt while I had long sleeves on my black velvet jumper. "Besides, she  _is_ wearing the glove"

Despite Bobby's initial hesitance to actually let me wander about in a room of thorny vines without him there to help me, I just lightly pet his cheek to reassure him that I was going to be fine. With great reluctance, he gently set me down on the ground and let me go to work, watching as I purposefully used my platform shoes to squash vines underneath my feet to keep them out of the way. If anything, the platforms were even better than Bobby's shoes, as it was just another layer to ensure that the thorns couldn't dig into the bottom of my feet.

It only took me about four or five steps to actually be standing on the stone pedestal itself, my hands carefully reaching around the vines to reach the handle of the sword, which luckily the vines hadn't seemed to wrap around. Something about the sword was a little odd when I looked closer at it however, as it was most definitely not a normal looking one, being made of what seemed to be hundreds of different individual sheets of metal.

"...I'm kind of worried it's going to break" I mumbled just loud enough for the others to be able to hear me, but there wasn't much they could tell me so I only got stony silence as a response. Even if the sword was going to break, leaving it in the stone slab was even worse as then there was the remote chance that the people who had left behind the embers would take the sword before us. "Well, here goes nothing"

I had expected some kind of resistance when I pulled against the sword, but that was exactly the opposite of what happened. The exact moment I pulled the sword snapped into two jagged pieces with an almighty ' _CHINK!',_ leaving the majority of the sword in the stone while I only got about a third of the sword still on the handle. The rest of the sword still in the stone proceeded to suddenly shatter into a million bright white pieces like little shards of glass, while I was reeling backwards from the sudden lack of resistance that the sword had left me with.

"Mila!" I couldn't exactly make out which one of the three had yelled out my name the moment I started to reel back, it possibly even could have been all three of them, but I could somewhat make out Gunner yelling at Bobby to stay still and not charge forward to save me as it would likely just end up with him  _and_ me pricked on an unlucky vine.

It took me two steps to finally right my balance, my feet shakily trying to get some purchase over the stone floor when I had finally gotten it back at the very last moment when I was most worried that I would completely fall over onto my back.

"OW!" I cried out as I finally came to a stop, most notably from a sudden prickly pain in the side of my right arm which still tightly clenched the sword in my hand in the worry I would drop it and proceed to lose it in the maze of thorns. Worried about what the pain was coming from, I turned my head to look at my arm the moment I had come back to a stop...

...To notice that a purple thorn had stuck itself right into the side of my arm.


	28. Mamma Mia

"Oh... Oh god, that's probably not good" I mumbled to myself as I carefully pulled my arm away from the thorn, the tiny hole it made in my jumper being just large enough to see the puncture wound. Almost immediately once my arm was off the thorn did the puncture wound start to turn a deep purple, the very same colour that the thorns were themselves, with a spreading numb feeling surging through my arm as the purple colour started to rapidly climb the limb towards my chest. "Bobby, Bobby it'f doing fomething to my arm"

Whatever kind of poison it was, it was spreading fast, my tongue feeling a slight tingling as though it was also beginning to numb as well, which made some certain harsh sounding letters come out slurred. Bobby almost looked like he was going to charge the three steps he would need to reach me, but Gunner's warning stopped him before he too would get himself pricked on one in his fearful haste.

"NO! Let her come to you, she still has more coverage on her arms than you!" Gunner used his best authoritative voice to get Bobby to listen, but there was a slight wobble in his words that seemed to say he was steadily devolving into panic as well. And if Connor's complete silence and horrified look was anything, it was that he was in a complete panic already, unable to think about what he was supposed to do.

Luckily for me, my legs were one of the only things to not feel numb at the time, which led me to be able to carefully stomp my way back over to Bobby. Somehow even though my arm was completely numb by this point, my hand still had a deathly strong grip on the shattered sword, as though my body was stubbornly refusing to let go simply because of how much trouble we had gone through to get it.

"Come here, I got you" Bobby shakily extended his arms to grab me once I was safely in range of him again, which caused some kind of switch to flip in my body, which completely collapsed into his arms. "I'm coming back with her, we need to get out of here fast and get to a poison centre!"

"I don't even think they'd have some kind of antidote for this, these plants might be hundreds of years old!" Connor finally seemed to be able to say something, but it clearly wasn't good news. As I lay somewhat numbly in Bobby's arms, he leaped up a huge height once more to what I had to assume was the top of the gates but frankly my vision was beginning to make less and less sense the more time went on. After what felt like another jump and suddenly going down to the ground again, Bobby began to race out of the door, and my confused mind was barely able to look behind Bobby to see Gunner and Connor run after us. "Wha- HEY! Where are you even going?!"

"I'm going to the pebble beach! If we get her to swallow some of the salty sea water she might throw up the toxin!"

"She didn't swallow a poison, it's in her bloodstream!"

"Do you have a better idea?!"

The three of them continued to argue even as they started to ascend several steps, with the clear impression left on me that the three of them actually had no clue on what they were supposed to do for me in that state. My mind, despite losing it's effectiveness with each passing second, was at least able to have some form of an idea of what to do after my eyes drifted to my left wrist. A problem did present itself the moment I tried to move my right hand to the ladybug on my left wrist, only to see that I still was holding the sword tightly in my... My very purple looking hand.

"I think the better decision would be to head back to our camp and set off the emergency beacon!" Gunner's voice started to become clearer the moment I gave up on recognising who was talking by sight, his frightened voice sounding shrill and far too familiar to the time he had charged against the guard in front of my apartment. "If we do that, we're more likely to get a response from Tanner and Paul, which means we'll be able to get her to a hospital"

"There's got to be more than just that, we have to at least try the salt route even if it sounds weird" Connor also gave his approval to Bobby's idea right as we came out of the Church and into the light once more.

As Bobby turned his body sharply to the... Right, I believe? As he and the other two sharply turned to their right to charge down the hill to reach the pebble beach down below, I noticed something a bit odd behind Bobby's shoulder. My eyes still couldn't work one hundred percent, but I could distinctly make out several people lying in wait just around a corner of the Church, only coming out of hiding when they saw us storm down to the beach.

"Moffy, fere'f fome people mehinm you" My attempt at warning him went completely wrong, my sentence sounding so garbled that only someone who was completely fluent in drunk speak could understand what I was trying to say.

"It's okay Mila, don't try to apologise" It was clear from Gunner's response that they had completely misunderstood what I was trying to tell them, which frightened me endlessly when I saw the large group of people start to follow behind us at a steady pace of their own. I still tried to warm them by numbly pointing my available left fingers over Bobby's shoulder towards the people following us. Unfortunately that also didn't work, as my numbing left arm meant that I couldn't actually lift it high enough to point it over his shoulder, instead looking like I was trying to poke Bobby in the chest. "What? What are you trying to tell Bobby?"

"Feheen nu!" Even my following set of words fell short when I tried to speak around my swollen tongue and thick lips, sounding even more garbled than literally two seconds beforehand, which just left the three of them looking very confused. I tried again to lift a finger from my now left purple hand, but it failed just as much as the last attempt, only successfully poking Bobby once more in one of his pecs. "Feefle! Feefle feheen nu!"

"I'm sorry Mila, but I really don't understand what you're trying to say" Bobby gave the bad news that he couldn't get it, and in a last ditch attempt I moved my neck sharply away from his shoulder and smacked my head into his right should in an attempt to get him to shift slightly sideways, which at least would have given him a bit more a chance to see them.

"Is it something to do with your shoulder?" It was all crashing and burning around me in a figurative sense, with Connor trying to piece together the messed up version of charades we were unintentionally playing with each other. As the three of them came skidding to a halt on the pebbles underneath their feet at the beach, Connor finally showed some progress by turning to his side to inspect Bobby's shoulder to see what I was making such a fuss about. "I can't see anything, so it's not like - Holy crap!"

Connor had effectively done what I had hoped that Bobby would do, shifting just enough to the side so that his peripheral vision picked up on the horde of people following behind us. His cry of surprise with the sheer amount of people tailing us was enough for Gunner and Bobby to look at him, notice that Connor was staring at something directly behind us, and also turn their bodies to see what the big deal was.

"Well hello there boys" While my eyes weren't able to pick up all of the features of the leader of the group that had come down to the beach with us, the sneering and condescending voice was enough for me to be able to recognise who it was. "I haven't seen you three... No, I suppose I should say you four, since that day in the court room"

It was Gashin, with at least around twenty human shaped figures following behind him in an intimidating manner. And if those twenty humans shapes were correct in my vision with their broad shoulders and impressive height meant that we were encountering an entire group of Alpha, who were likely not happy to see us.

"My my, she doesn't look too good, does she?" Gashin must have been referring to me, obviously emphasised by the fact that I was wheezing heavily by that point in a desperate attempt to still breath past my failing lungs. "Ah, that's right, the thorns in that chamber. We actually had a 'borrowed' scientist try to make an antidote to save his boyfriend, as of course we sent in the boyfriend to try and get over the gates to get the sword before any of us went in. It's a shame that the scientist only managed to make the antidote today, when his boyfriend died yesterday"

As if to prove that he wasn't speaking nonsense, one of the Alpha behind him lifted some weird kind of purple balloon animal off his shoulder and flung it between us and Gashin. Only when I looked closer did I realise that it actually wasn't a balloon animal, instead that it was a corpse of a person, their skin so swollen and purple that their face looked grotesquely misshapen, like someone had attempted to remake his face with clay.

"Jesus Christ..." Connor couldn't help but utter in disgust as he laid eyes on the corpse, even sounding somewhat as if he was going to be sick at the thought of a similar fate awaiting me.

"But I suppose it's really good luck for you guys, as we do have the antidote right here!" Gashin quite cheerily addressed us as he held up an injector with a bright pink fluid in it, holding it all in such a way to remind them that if they did something to displease him that he could just flex his wrist and hand muscles to crush the injector in his hands. "You don't want poor Mila to end up like that, do you?"

"...What do you want?" Bobby slowly asked Gashin, which even I could make an animalistic smile slowly crawl onto the latter's face as Bobby was playing directly into his hands. Gunner and Connor both looked like they knew that agreeing to any terms Gashin was going to state was bad, but another look at my face or the corpse reminded them of what was going to happen to me if nobody did anything was enough for them to bite their tongue.

"Oh you know, simple stuff. I need that stub of a sword she got from the chamber, and I need you all to drop your weapons so that we won't have any ugly stabbing or fighting going on" Gashin stated with a carefree attitude about him, but it was clear from his sadistic smile that he was enjoying the fact that we were in a situation where he could make us squirm. Even though I started to make noises that sounded something akin to protests, I could see that Connor was removing the satchel off his shoulders and dropping that alongside his sledgehammer onto the pebbles while Gunner was gently taking the retractable spear from Bobby's waist. "And just to be on the safe side, put the girl down on the pebbles. I don't want to see you doing something stupid like throwing her at me in a weird attempt to get the upper-hand"

Naturally, Bobby looked clearly offended with the prospect of even thinking of throwing me in such a way. I believe with all my heart that even if I had  _begged_ him to throw me, he still likely would have refused to do so, as would the other four men in my life.

Even so, he regretfully had to put me down onto the cold pebbles underneath his feet, keeping an eye on Gashin the entire time. Will all of the weapons no longer in their hands and me on the pebbles, Gashin steepled his fingers in front of his face just like he had done during the court case... And that was probably the biggest indicator that he was going to play dirty.

"Thank you for your cooperation" Immediately after saying that, a sharp noise sounded through the air, almost as if three objects were flung with high velocity from the Alpha goons that were surrounding Gashin. I could make out several spastic movements from my three companions as though they were trying to dodge whatever had been flung at them, but it was clear from a set of loud beeping noises and their hands shooting up to their necks that they hadn't been successful.

A cacophony of yelling and pain filled screaming came from the three of them, my frazzled mind being unable to differentiate between who started screaming first and who fell over in pain first. I was at least aware enough to associate the electrocuting noises, beeping and pained responses that they had to be wearing shock collars.

Now, personally as an Omega, we never had much problem with shock collars because they only activated if they detected muscle movement. Due to Omega having low muscle mass, they wouldn't activate on us, but muscly Beta and Alpha... They were equivalent to torture.

"Screw you!" Connor still had some fight left in him even when he was face-down on the pebbles, and I tried my best to wriggle my body to help him out. It didn't do much, beyond me looking like I was trying to shuffle my way slowly towards him over the pebbles, but I didn't get very far before some of the Alpha beat me to him. "Let go of me!"

"Don't touch me!" Gunner soon joined in on Connor's shouting, the two of them seemingly trying to break their record for the loudest noise they had ever made, possibly in order to intimidate the Alpha away from them.

True to Connor and Gunner's descriptions, several of the Alpha began to surge forward to drag the three restrained Beta off to some place that I couldn't see. And if the sound of a ship hovering somewhere in the distance was anything to pay attention to, it was not going to be on this island anymore.

"Give the antidote to Mila!" Bobby angrily gnashed his teeth at someone who hovered above his prone form on the floor, whom I assumed had to be Gashin.

"Ah yes, the antidote" Gashin soon came to glower over me, relishing in the fact that I was unable to say something against him beyond numbly staring into the air at his blurry form. The injector was quite visible compared to the rest of him, the bright pink liquid sloshing around inside of it in a distracting manner. With what I could assume was a smirk on his face, he dangled it above my face and proceeded to drop it from a decent height. "Here you go, I hope you choke on it"

The injector then proceeded to bounce off one of my cheeks and land somewhere away from me. He didn't proceed to pick to up again and actually inject me with it, instead turning straight around until his back was faced towards me and stalking away.

"Let's take these three Beta back to the camp and leave the Omega to die" Gashin instructed his other Alpha brethren, completely ignoring Gunner and Connor who still were proceeding to scream insults and vitriol their way. "Even if we can't find a practical use for the Beta, I'm sure we can find an... Entertaining use for them"

"NO! You bastard!" Bobby was the last voice out of my three companions that I could make out, as the other two had gotten far enough away that their shouting was drowned out by the sound of choppy wind and engines. "Mila!"

"Foffy... Munner... Honnor..." I numbly tried to call out their names, but my voice by that point was whisper quiet from the way my throat had nearly completely closed together. The only one who could hear me by that point was myself, with the only noise in the background even suggesting that someone  _may_ have heard me coming from the sounds of Bobby still trying to call out my name in the distance.

Once again my attempts at movement left me just as a wriggling mess on my back, not even capable of really lifting my head far away from the pebbles without feeling completely drained. Even so, I felt like I couldn't give up, not with the opportunity to live I had been given by those three. If I died, not only would their sacrifice have been useless, but then there also likely would be no chance for Matthias or the others to find them and free them.

Like a turtle trapped on its back, I started to wriggle as violently as I could from side to side to try and tip myself over onto my front rather than stay on my back. While on normal ground I would have gotten nowhere, the pebbles started to slide and wriggle around me, which gradually made it easier to wobble from side to side. At the first possible moment, I tried to fling my full weight to my right to try and correct myself, but I just barely didn't manage to tip myself and crashed back onto my back into my pebbles. Gnashing my teeth together, I begun the process once again and tried it again once I had a bit more tipping power in my wobbles, which this time mercifully was successful.

Landing with a bit of a thud on my front, I could hear that my crashing around had dislodged the white glass flower in my hair and caused it to drop in front of my face. To my surprise it actually was glowing softly, which made me do the extreme effort of reaching out my right hand to cup it gently. Something akin to a heartbeat was gently thumping from the center of the flower, and a miracle began to happen in the sense that a slight amount of purple was beginning to disappear from the hand that cupped it. Not much mind you, as eventually the glass flower turned a deep purple like my skin did, obviously having soaked up as much poison as it could manage, but it did leave a good portion of my right hand completely free of poison.

With this new point in my favour, I crawled as best I could along the pebbles until I was within range of the injector, where I then used my somewhat usable right hand to bat the injector closer towards me. After quickly sticking the flower back into my hair, I reached out my hand to the injector and tried to pick it up... Only to find that even my more usable right hand wasn't strong enough to pull the trigger properly on the injector.

Using my best quality, my mind, I thought up different ways of still at least being able to use the thing in some capacity, but there only was one idea that seemed like something I could think of. Using my numb left hand I started to dig a rudimentary hole in the pebbles to put the injector in with the needle pointing upwards, which I then did with my more available right hand before piling the pebbles back in to keep it steady in the ground.

Then, with great trepidation, I lifted my right hand as far as I could into the air and slammed my palm directly down onto the needle.

"Gsh!" Even my pained noise didn't sound remotely normal once the needle was well and truly stabbed into the skin, but I could feel something coming back in the skin and muscle there, some feeling rather than a perpetual numbness. Even my breathing started to get a little easier, with some of my vision and mind clearing being the best momentary thing to have in that moment.

I knew that I couldn't exactly go chasing after those Alpha on my own, even if the injector had completely healed me, so I had to get help. After angling my left wrist close to my face (As I knew that my right hand wasn't going to be much more help with a literal needle being stabbed through the middle of it), I gritted the little extra strap on the ladybug bracelet between my teeth as hard as I could, and yanked the strap hard enough for it to come flying out.


	29. Open arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was informed by a friend that they really didn't like the needle situation in the previous chapter, whoops  
> So just a warning for anyone that is really uncomfortable about things such as that, this chapter will also have some icky needle scenes

My memory beyond that point was extremely hazy, small snippets of time that my mind would return for a couple of seconds before something akin to sleep (More likely an unconscious state, but it was tiring enough to feel like I was sleeping) took over me. Even with the injector helping slowly against the poison, lifting my face away from the pebbles was a monumentous task. I counted my blessings that neither the tide or the pebbles themselves suffocated me, the former thankfully staying far away and the latter being simply because the pebbles never packed too tight a surface against my nose, which allowed me to breath just enough to not lose precious air.

Before long there was something beyond the sound of the rolling shore that seemed to attract my attention long enough to try to focus again, the faint whining noises of some kind of engine sounding off in the distance. It seemed kind of familiar to me, making me think of long nights under a starry sky with my father, who I often insisted on staying up with when he worked on old machines.

Eventually the whining went away, and I very nearly drifted back into a deep sleep when the skittering sounds of pebbles moving distracted me again. Whoever it was, they certainly were in a hurry, their footsteps sounding like they weren't placed with care from the way it seemed to be that they wobbled and nearly fell over a couple of times.

"...ila! Wha... here?! Where are... onnor and Bobby?!"

Whoever it was, they were trying to shout to me as they came closer, eventually skidding to a halt right next to me and barely managing to stop themselves from kicking my side. Even as they turned me over to face the darkening sky, their voice was still difficult to pick up, with me just barely being able to make out their face.

"Oh god!... 're face is br... urple!" Paul worriedly noticed my condition, his eyes quickly scanning over my body and noticing the injector still lodged in my right hand. It seemed that wasn't the only thing he noticed, his head swivelling to and fro around me in search for my three companions, but not finding any of them. "...obby! Gunner! Conn... ere are you guy..."

"Foffy... Munneh... Honneh..." The names of my three companions made me sort of remember what had happened to them, me trying in vain to tell Paul that the three of them had been kidnapped. As I opened my mouth wide to try and speak past my swollen tongue, the strap belonging on the end of the ladybug bracelet fell out of my mouth and landed on one of Paul's knees, which reminded him that I was really not in a good state. "...Miffnaffeh"

"...amn it! I nee... get you back fir..." He gave up on trying to decipher my words or figure out where the other three had gotten to, hurriedly shuffling me into his arms after he stuck the strap back into the bracelet, quickly dashing off with me to whatever ship he had used to rush there. The wind felt oddly cold compared to before, with the most shelter I could find being Paul's chest and bony shoulder, which I no doubt would have tried to crawl into had I any semblance of movement at the time. "Jus... old on, I've got you..."

He made it back up to the top of the isles in what would have no doubt been record timing, him even feeling like he was running at the top speed he could manage, hurriedly pushing a button on his waist to open up the cockpit of his vulture. With me being as small as I was, he didn't bother to make his ship shift into a two-seater like I knew it could, him bundling me into the same seat as him with me still in his lap with my face pressed against his shoulder as he started the engines. The soft whining of the engines once again seemed to remind me of my father, with me drifting off to sleep in his arms with memories lulling me into a sense of security while Paul struggled to both fly the ship and hold me against his chest.

...Starry nights. Before they were only a memory I associated with my father and his special engines, but for some reason there was an overriding memory playing at the same time. For some reason all the memories of my father got overwritten by the memory I had recently made with Paul, with the both of us standing on the roof of the company and seeing the meteor shower together.

In a way, it was really sad to see that my memories of my father were being overtaken by those of others... But at the same time, I supposed it was time. He had been dead for over a year by then, and perhaps it was finally time to let his memory simply be that; a memory. It was time to make new memories, beside the people who loved me right then and there.

...It was time to move on.

* * *

The rest of the flight back was just as hazy as the time on the beach had felt, the first signs of actual memories coming back the moment the cockpit opened in the garage of the P.W.C. building, which meant that we had made it back home.

"...att! MATT!" Paul's shouting was the first thing to really jolt me awake, even jumping a little in his arms as my slow brain tried to catch up with what was going on around me. The jump I gave seemed to make Paul happy, perhaps because it was a sign that I was still alive there, and I could tell once he gave me a small smile immediately after I gave him the slight jump.

After Paul's yelling several other things started to happen at once, with the most notable being that I could actually make out someone noisily making their way to the both of us. Paul didn't stop even though he was there, as clearly he wasn't Matthias, but I could somewhat make out that it was Tanner from the way he spoke to me and the very warm hand that wrapped around my more aware right hand.

"...at happen... o you?! You loo... ou've been... oisoned!" Tanner's speech was still as bad as everyone else's had been so far, but it was still something to make me feel more relaxed in that moment. Paul ended up saying something back to Tanner's remark, but it was clear from Tanner's worried reaction that he wasn't pleased with the answer he had gotten. "Where... Bobby, Gunner and Con..."

"...don't know... They weren't... isles, but I didn't... time to sear... Mila was in a bad..." Paul answered the following question, which my addled brain seemed to register as the both of them still not knowing where the three guys were, so I tried once again to speak to them in the rare chance that Tanner understood me better than the others did.

"Foffy... Munneh... Honneh... Miffnaffeh"

"Is she... say the wor... kidnapped?" Tanner, despite the communication barrier between me and him, did seem to miraculously understand the notable last word out of my sentence, and I honestly wanted to have the ability to kiss him I was so relieved. Paul's face took a turn for the worse once Tanner decoded that, looking extremely apologetic for leaving with just me and not looking further for the three missing comrades, but he eventually shook his head and accepted that it was too late to dwell on it.

"MATT!" Paul finally seemed to find the guy he was looking for, at the end of the corridor we had just turned into was someone vaguely in the distance with a bright blue shirt and sandy blonde hair. Even with my hazy vision I could tell it had to be Matthias, with the person immediately dispensing orders the moment he could even spy that something wasn't quite right with me.

Side stepping into what looked like some kind of medical bay, Matthias ordered Paul to lay me on one of the gurneys in the centre of the room, which the latter did a bit apprehensively.

"...at's this in... hand?" Matthias asked the other two about the injector in my hand, but only Paul was able to give an answer to it. I couldn't make out what Paul had exactly told Matthias, but I could tell that it was something that Matthias decided that he could work with. "...lright, we need to... into her heart"

...My heart? I couldn't figure out much more about what they were trying to do with the injector, as both Paul and Tanner gravely nodded their heads without too much protest. After that the three of them seemed to circle around me in a way that made me really dizzy, with Paul ending up at the top of my head, his hands soon securely moving around my head and neck to ensure that I wasn't going to tilt my head around. I stared up at him blankly, as I had no idea what they were planning on doing, but the best he could give me back was an apologetic smile for what they were going to do.

Further down my body, Tanner securely rested his arms across my chest in a way that reminded me of someone trying to strap a person into a gurney, while Matthias was on the left side pulling out the injector of my hand and angling it to the side of my chest, possibly because he had to go around my breasts to actually reach what he was going to be aiming for. It was only after a couple of seconds that I seemed to get that they were soon going to be stabbing the injector directly into my heart, but I didn't really have the energy nor the time to protest on that plan of action.

"Whatev... don't let g... f her"

That was all the warning I got before I could feel the needle puncture my skin, slip between my ribs and slide into my heart. The antidote that got flooded into my heart was far more painful than I could have predicted, simultaneously feeling like it was being electrocuted and burning on the inside all at once.

"AAAAAHHHHH!" I screamed from the top of my lungs, all of my limbs flying around violently in an attempt to make the pain stop. It finally clicked why Tanner and Paul were holding me down, the both of them being in the places that really couldn't afford to do banging or flinging around, as the needle breaking off in my wound and the thought of getting a concussion or spinal injury being horrific in the process. That didn't mean that it was an easy task for them, as one of my legs managed to spasm around enough to whack Tanner in the shoulder, and one of my arms accidentally slammed into Matthias' stomach. Even with the considerable flinches of pain they both gave from being hit, they didn't let go, determined to get their job done and save my life.

"Shh, you're okay" Paul did his best to try and soothe me in the best way he could, both reassuring me with his voice and by softly petting my cheeks with his available fingers. It did actually seem to help, as it meant that my mind calmed down enough where I could finally get some semblance of control over my body, fighting hard to make sure that I didn't hurt any of the three of them further despite the pain.

"Ow, for an Omega those legs can certainly do some damage" Tanner also helped out with calming me down, cracking a joke as he feigned being worse off in his shoulder than he actually was. I wasn't quite pain free enough to laugh yet, but there certainly was a smile creeping up onto my lips.

"Aaaaand we're done!" Matthias declared once all of the pink solution was into my bloodstream, with him retracting the needle out of my side successfully just a couple of seconds later. With no need to hold me down, both Tanner and Paul did let go for the most part, but still hovering nearby to ensure that I didn't possibly do anything else too strenuous while my body was still taking in the antidote. Amazingly, the antidote worked faster than anything else I had ever had before (Possibly because it had the entire heart pumping it around in my bloodstream), which meant that I had my breathing back... But more importantly, I had my voice back. "Now, will  _someone_ please tell me what in the actual heck happened?! All I know is that Paul zipped out of here like a man possessed when something beeped on his GPS, and now you've brought back Mila who was looking very close to being a literal grape!"

"Bobby, Connor and Gunner were kidnapped by a gigantic group of Alpha!" I finally managed to tell them clearly now that I was back in control of my own body, and the three of them froze instantly once I told them the news. Sure, Tanner had managed to decode that I was saying the word 'kidnapped' earlier, but he had yet to link it back to the three guys who had gone with me and he most certainly hadn't linked it to a group of Alpha. With the three of them now silent, I had the chance to calmly tell them further without having to shout, but somehow it was much harder to tell it to them quietly than it was to blurt it out. "I had gotten poisoned by accident on a thorn that was protecting the sword, and the group of Alpha offered to give me the antidote if they lowered their weapons... But they kind of betrayed them, kidnapping them and leaving me to die on the Isles. I only managed to be okay because I stabbed myself with that injector, and because I could call Paul easily to my location... Gashin was leading them"

"...You're joking" Matthias for once showed a side to himself that I hadn't seen before. It was just like the three companions on the island, showing a side of him that was less exaggerated than his usual public persona. It was so... Jarring, to see him completely lose both his calm and possibly shifty side, just completely looked shattered and frightened with the possibility that he had lost not only two of his best employees (And no doubt they were good friends with him as well), but also the cousin that had started their entire movement against the Alpha. "Please, for all that is good and holy, tell me that you are joking"

My lack of a response was enough to tell him that I wasn't joking, and it seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for him. He turned around to possibly give us some respite against what he was going to show next and... Honestly and unequivocally started to weep.

Paul and Tanner also were hit hard with the news, with the former bundling me up in his arms for support, while Tanner just looked like he had lost all the hope that had remained in his world. From the way they were acting, I got the sincere impression that they thought that the three kidnapped comrades were likely going to be dead within the day.

...Somehow I was the only one with hope left out of the four of us in that room, which meant that I had to be the one to light the torch that Bobby had started before me. Even if there was the remote chance that the three of them were alive somewhere, we couldn't give in! And we most certainly couldn't give in before those eighteen years came around!

"They're still alive" I stated that belief as though it was fact, if nothing more than just to get them to listen to me. Matthias turned his head slightly to look back at me, but it was clear that out of three of them, he was going to be the hardest to convince to take charge again. "We can't give up on them; we have to get them back!"

"And what makes you think that, huh?" Matthias spoke in a bitter tone, clearly not in the mood for any sort of placation that was going to come from me or anyone else... Which was good, because I was not in a placating mood. "If you're trying to give me hope without proper reason, then you're sorely out of luck"

"Connor and Gunner are the most stubborn people I've ever met, and you and I both know that Bobby would never give up after what happened to his brother" I decided that it was best to take the bull by the horns, not trying to tiptoe around the obvious subject because I had to confront Matthias about it someday. And if the suspicious look in Tanner and Matthias' eyes were anything to go by, they had already picked up that something was not quite right with my words if I was supposed to not know about the future. "I know about the Alpha army coming in eighteen years"

That was enough to catch their attention, sharply jolting Matthias out of his depressed stupor. Paul was even doing a admirable job of looking surprised with this revelation, possibly also because he had only told me time period and danger level of it all, but not what the danger was going to be. Tanner and Paul even both looked at each other with a similar look in their eyes, one of 'wait, did you tell her?', albeit I knew that one of them was more innocent in that regard than the other.

"...How do you know about that?" Matthias reacted in a way that Connor, Bobby and Gunner had said that he would, being extremely suspicious of all of the others within the circle that knew about it, which just so happened to only be Paul and Tanner who were standing in the same room as him. Both boys gave him an utterly honest shake of their heads, one being honest and the other being less honest about the fact that they hadn't told me anything.

"Connor told me one time to go to your office to look for some kind of instruction that you hadn't given him, and I accidentally stumbled onto your registry of supplies for the day the Alpha army is going to attack" I decided to directly hop onto Connor's fib, one which seemed to work perfectly once Matthias sighed in a way that seemed to say that it was entirely possible for that to have happened. "But that doesn't change anything. I talked with the three guys who were with me on the Isles, and I decided to join in with the Prevention of Widespread Chaos"

"YOU WHAT?!" This time Paul was being completely honest, being taken entirely by surprise as Tanner was, with Paul hurriedly clutching my shoulders in his hands as he looked extraordinarily worried with the thought of me joining them. "Mila, you can't!"

"No kidding she can't!" Tanner seemed to be in just as much agreement as his pilot friend, with Tanner also coming over to hover over me and hold my shoulders in his hands (Albeit in a different spot than where Paul's hands were, as the two of them were close, but not  _that_ close). Even as those two boys began to protest, something in Matthias' eyes and demeanour seemed to say that he honestly was thinking of letting me join. "Mila, if you join, it isn't a case of you possibly dying, it's-

"A case that I  _will_ die, I know" I cut him off before he got too far into his tirade, as it was beginning to sound far too similar to Connor's when I had decided to join with him present. "Connor already gave me this spiel Tanner, I understand"

"But-

"Alright" Matthias gave his approval, something which utterly shocked Paul and Tanner, the both of them staring at him like he had just betrayed them in some way. It seemed to be a common theme, with Paul, Tanner and the others all deciding what was or wasn't safe for me, and Matthias swiftly cutting through their admittedly understandable protective nature. "Outside of Kevin and Marvin, we don't have many Omega who can make plans for our group. And besides, you already know about the army, so I doubt that you can go back to normal before that is all sorted out"

"Matt, you can't be serious!" Paul attempted one last time to halt Matthias' plans to let me join, but both Matthias and I already knew of several reasons for why it was going to be bad to reject me.

"Paul, listen to me carefully, okay? If she doesn't join, then it means she's going to be released back into the general public with the knowledge that there's an entire Alpha army waiting in the wings to take over this solar system" Matthias addressed all of the points that I myself was thinking about when I had joined, and every single point did seem to take both boys down a peg despite the both of them clearly not liking it any less. "One of two things could happen. Either she leaves the solar system and goes to a new one, where she'll be all alone with the knowledge that she abandoned everyone in this solar system to that horrific army, or..."

'Or she gets killed by an Alpha who figures out that she knows more than she should' was the final part to that logic, but even though Matthias left the floor open for either of them to say it, it seemed to be too difficult for them to say. With it well and truly settled that the best thing was to utilise my talents for the cause rather than trying to shelter me from it, Matthias took a deep breath and settled his nerves, looking like he at least had something to go on.

"Okay, we need to get several things sorted out. First of all, Tanner, I need you to send out a message to all of our employees that we need to be shut down for over a month for unforeseen circumstances. After you've done that, we need to send out word to Bryan, Jfred, Kevin and Marvin at their training camp to get them to come back early from their training" Matthias already started to hand out orders, with Tanner sharply nodding his head and moving off to do as he was told. I don't know how Matthias missed it, but Tanner did leave with me a lingering touch on one of my shoulders, one that was clearly romantic in nature before he finally shifted away to do his job. "Paul, we really need to train Mila how to use a gun, and possibly how to fly a ship should we really need it. You have a week to teach her both of these things while I go search for any sign of our missing trio"

"Aye aye boss" Paul sharply saluted Matthias, possibly as a thing that was drummed into him with his short stint in the military.

"If I may interrupt" I decided to take the opportunity to speak while I still had the chance, and I took the slightly raised eyebrow from Matthias as the best approval I was going to get under the circumstances. "I'm suggesting that we try to recruit Blaire and Katra into the Prevention of Widespread Chaos, as we're no doubt going to need psychologist support in the times ahead, and there's no denying that Katra's talent will be helpful"

"...Suggestion accepted. Paul, send word to Blaire and Katra that I need to speak to them privately, it's about time we actually started to expand this movement properly" Matthias seemed oddly appreciative of my suggestion despite him being the leader of it all, possibly just because he suddenly started to realise that there was no point in sneaking around in the shadows now that we had made a considerable enemy in Gashin. "Let's go everyone; we don't have time to waste"

 

**End of record - Search**


	30. Psychologist report #00002

**Greetings. My name is Blaire, and I must first inform whoever is listening to this recording that the parameters of these recordings has changed since the previous one. No longer are these to be used for all purpose training, as these are only allowed to be viewed by members of the true P.W.C. for information following these eighteen years. Currently we have lost three of our thirteen members after what we know as the CIF-1 incident, so these appointments have been made to try and provide reassurance to the remaining members"**

* * *

**"Mila, thank you for coming back to another appointment with me"**

**"Honestly, I think I really need this. This coming week is going to be really stressful"**

**"You're part of the recovery team?"**

**"I am. They said that they need as many people who are going to be trained to fight as they can, and they can't take Bryan and Jfred with them because Matthias can't take the risk of the... People storming the company building"**

**"You are allowed to say the word Alpha during these sessions"**

**"We aren't worried about someone somehow being able to hack in or getting the physical copies of these?"**

**"I suppose it isn't quite reassuring to be told this, but if someone where to find these tapes then it would likely be long after we would be dead. And as for hacking, Matthias' talent is in computers, so I have the highest faith in him"**

**"I do too... That faith is going to have to be my reason to not freak out constantly"**

**"I know this might seem like a silly question to ask, but... How have you been?"**

**"Since Bobby, Gunner and Connor got kidnapped, or since learning about the Alpha army?"**

**"Both. I have the time to spare, with the company being shut down for a month"**

**"Ah... I guess the answer for both is not too great. I have a purpose, which is nice, but I... I really am trying not to blame myself for the kidnapping"**

**"We'll find them"**

**"We better. Otherwise... Otherwise I'm not quite sure I could be very... Cordial with Mr. Gashin"**

**"...You seem to have developed a bit of an intimidating manner to yourself like Matthias does"**

**"Good. That Alpha deserves to feel a little fear"**

* * *

**"Welcome back Tanner"**

**"...How are you guys so calm about this?"**

**"Who are you referring to?"**

**"You guys. You, Mila and Katra. When I first learned of the Alpha army it took me weeks... No, months to even accept that this was going to be my new reality, and you guys just seem to flip your hair nonchalantly over your shoulder and you're good to go"**

**"There are multiple reasons for why that might be. For starters, we currently have an emergency going on in the form of our missing comrades, which likely leaves us with a feeling that we _can't_ afford to panic"**

**"But that implies that you guys might actually be freaking out, but are keeping that on the inside"**

**"Indeed"**

**"Is... Is that what you guys are feeling?"**

**"I'm afraid that telling you what Katra and Mila told me in their appointments is breaching confidence, and you'd have to ask them about that personally if you wanted to know about it"**

**"Oh, of course"**

**"As for me, I must admit I am... Frightened by the prospect of such a massive army. But while I am feeling that, I am using that fear to drive me, as my fear of them hurting my younger sister overrides my fear of facing them"**

**"...Yeah, I wish I had the self-confidence to do that"**

**"You do. You just need to find that person that means enough to you"**

**"I thought I did, but she's... She's decided to throw herself into the trouble I'm trying to keep her from"**

**"Is this about Katra?"**

**"Katra? Why would she-**

**"It's not Katra? Strange, that would only leave..."**

**"Please, just don't ask. I'm not ready to talk to Matthias or anyone else about it"**

**"Very well. Just know that I am always available to talk"**

* * *

**"I'm glad you decided to come again Paul"**

**"Before we begin, I need to confess something"**

**"While this isn't a confessional, you are perfectly fine with admitting things to me. I am all ears"**

**"I've been in a relationship with Mila since the ASI-2 incident"**

**"ASI-2?"**

**"Oh, uh... The time when Tadashi tried to kidnap her"**

**"Ah, I see. Thank you very much for clarifying that"**

**"...That's it? No surprise, no shock and disdain for the fact I broke the rules?"**

**"Would you prefer that I react in that way?"**

**"No, actually. While this is unexpected, I suppose it is actually really nice to not be told off for loving someone. Thank you"**

**"If anything, it should be me thanking you. From what Mila has told me, you've been a real pillar in her life since she joined the company"**

**"Oh, did she already tell you about me and her?"**

**"No, she kept that very much under wraps. I did have a feeling that something was going on however, as she seemed to always acquire this sort of happy glow about her when she talked to or about you"**

**"She does? That's... That's actually really nice to hear"**

**"You also seem to acquire a happy glow to you when she is brought up in conversation. I truly hope the both of you continue to support each other, even if it were to eventually be nothing more than friends"**

* * *

**"You look upset Katra"**

**"Blaire, darling, it's just absolutely dreadful!"**

**"The Alpha army?"**

**"Yes! Not only that, Mila - that poor girl - got involved in this whole thing again!"**

**"She does certainly seem to have bad luck"**

**"I don't actually think it's to do with luck though, I think Gashin just specifically wanted to go after those four. It wasn't a case of losing his cousin to them, I honestly think it was some kind of messed up pride that made him think that they dragged his name through the mud"**

**"...That's certainly a concerning thought"**

**"It is. Even more than that, I've begun to notice a... Weird change in Mila the last couple of days"**

**"She's begun to exhibit similar signs to Matthias in terms of anger towards the Alpha"**

**"Exactly! I'm really worried about her"**

**"I don't think it's that big of a problem"**

**"Really? How come?"**

**"Truth be told, I think that anger is good for her. It's not excessive and it's perfectly reasonable that she's be upset by this point, so I think she should harness that power growing in her to put some fear into her opponents"**

**"The both of you are so fierce, I love it! No matter what happens, I'm with you two all the way! And if I'm being a bit cheeky, I'd probably like to be there for Tanner as well"**

**"I think that'd be better for him than what he has right now"**

**"Oh? What do you mean?"**

**"...I think that will have to be something you ask him about"**

* * *

**"Welcome back Matthias. While I am not sure if you are coming because your therapist is still away on holiday or if you prefer me to them, but regardless I am pleased to see you back for another time"**

**"Truth be told, I'm not sure about your style just yet, but if we're really going to be waging war to get Bobby, Gunner and Connor back, then it's more prudent for me to see someone within the company who won't be hurt"**

**"I'll see that as a compliment in the sense that you are able to be more open with me because of my position within your company. How may I help?"**

**"...Blaire, be honest with me, am I a bad person?"**

**"'Bad and 'good' are subjective terms, Matthias"**

**"Alright, fine then, do _you_ see me as a bad person?"**

**"I do not. However, from your questions I am getting the impression that you believe yourself to be a bad person"**

**"I do think that, yeah. This entire movement wasn't any of my doing; it was Bobby who wanted to begin it... So many people I know have wanted to do the right thing, an old co-worker on Pandora leading her pack against it to Bobby starting everything here. I was seriously considering throwing in the towel after hearing that those three were kidnapped, but somehow Mila brought me back with her belief in them"**

**"You're afraid of losing your life in something such as this, which is actually perfectly normal especially considering your wife and daughter at home"**

**"But what does it say about me that I'm willing to send in people much younger than me to fight this, but I stall when it comes to going in myself?"**

**"Nothing. It's says absolutely nothing about you Matthias, and I mean that in the politest way possible. We have over twenty-six billion people in just this solar system, and trying to fit everyone into a very tight mold of what it means to be human is impossible. The only thing fear means, is that you are human"**

**"...Human, huh. It's been a long time since I considered myself something mundane like that"**

**"Well, in my personal opinion, I think it's about time you allow yourself to be human once again"**

* * *

**"Bryan! What a surprise, I didn't expect you so soon. I had kind of expected Kevin and Marvin to come through here first before you"**

**"I'm sorry; I asked the both of them if I could come in first"**

**"Ah, fair enough. I assume something must have happened for you to seek my help"**

**"My night terrors have worsened"**

**"Oh no, that's not good. Have they become more frequent or more vivid?"**

**"More frequent. Before it sometimes happened once a month, but lately they've been ramping up to several times a week. It's really been affecting my sleep to the point where I have to sleep in another room to not bother my wife, and I seem to not be able to get a good night’s rest in that very same night"**

**"Naturally. I can start to look for things that help people to sleep, such as meditation techniques and some minor medications that relax the muscles, if you'd like"**

**"Please do, it's been several days since I've last slept"**

* * *

**"...Jfred?"**

**"Hello Beautiful"**

**"I must admit, I didn't think you'd show up here. I was under the impression that you didn't enjoy these sessions"**

**"I don't"**

**"And yet, you showed up?"**

**"I didn't particularly come here to talk about me, I mainly came to see how you were doing"**

**"Me?"**

**"Yeah, you. I can't imagine it was easy learning about the Alpha army"**

**"It's... Overwhelming at times"**

**"I figured as much, you struck me as the kind of person to try and help everyone else out first before actually taking care of yourself. Kind of like my brother, in a way. That's why I'm not going to talk about my problems for free in here, because either you - or Matthias - will take it on as if it was your guys personal mission to help me out"**

**"So you're saying that you'll never open up to me or your brother?"**

**"If I open up, I want it to be an equal exchange. I tell you something about me, you tell me something about you, and eventually we'll get better at being open and figuring out ways to become the best versions of ourselves. But most importantly, we'll be doing it together"**

**"If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say that was romantic in nature"**

**"It is. I'm hoping to find a partner who's willing to stand beside me, not one who lingers behind. With your strength, courage and kindness, I don't think I'd find anyone more perfect than you"**

**"...Joey, I'm not sure what to say"**

**"You don't have to say anything you're not comfortable with saying just yet, think it over for a bit while we just get to know each other better. That sound good?"**

**"It does"**

**"Awesome. Now, come on, let's get you out of this stuffy room for a while to get some fresh air together"**

* * *

**"These recordings conclude the psychologist reports of the CIF-1 incident. Both Kevin and Marvin respectfully asked for their records to be removed because they had mentioned names of their family and wished to keep them safe during this time. I have been given strict orders by my boss Matthias that these tapes should only be seen by current members of the Prevention of Widespread Chaos, but there is another clause that will occur if certain conditions are not met. In eighteen years’ time, a timer shall be set for a period of a month from the moment we set out for war. If we do not return, likely in the event that we utterly fail to stop the oncoming army, then these recording shall be broadcast on the main news network to spread awareness to save as many people as we can. We have a long road ahead of us, but each journey is achieved by continuous steps, no matter how insignificant they may be. Blaire signing off"**


	31. The wrecked and the worried

**Record three - Rescue**

 

It only took Jfred, Bryan, Marvin and Kevin a couple of hours to rush back from their training camp once they got word from Tanner, and it took even less time for Katra and Blaire to arrive from their respective homes. Though admittedly seeming a bit surprised in several ways, we soon had ten members fully prepared for the daunting mission of saving Gunner, Connor and Bobby from... Wherever they were taken.

"Mila, hey" Marvin was immediately supportive the moment he entered the medical bay, gently wrapping me in a hug once he was close enough. I could certainly feel an odd dampness to his shirt, as though they had just come from their training the very moment they heard what had happened. He and his brothers had returned safely, but unlike Paul who seemed to be able to tell when it was or wasn't a good time to make a joke, Kevin was still his usual self.

"Whoa guys, where's the funeral?" Kevin asked us all the moment he entered the medical bay, obviously feeling the tense, depressive air around us. While he could feel it quite keenly like the rest of us could, he did seem to think that he had to do something about it, so he kept going even when nobody reacted to his first remark. "Seriously, you guys acted like somebody died"

"Cut the upbeat humour for a second Kevin, this is serious" Matthias clearly was not in the mood for the brand of humour that Kevin was carrying around with him, it obviously grating on the very attentive nerves that were trying to form plans in his head. Usually that would be where the discussion ended, but Jfred this time felt he had to say something despite his usually relaxed demeanour about things.

"No, I think that's a bad idea" Jfred dared for once to actually speak back to his older brother, immediately earning the latter's ire the moment he spoke against him. "Right now everyone's anxiety is flying through the roof, so someone making jokes actually is necessary to bring that down"

"Jokes are making my nerves shoot through the roof, so I'd say that's wrong" Matthias countered his younger brothers remark, but it was clear from the stubbornness in both their eyes that they weren't really planning on backing down in that. "Furthermore, if you and Kevin really can't see when it is or isn't the right time to make jokes, how am I supposed to trust you two with anything that's going to come along?!"

"First of all, you know I can handle making jokes and doing serious work at the same time, you saw that much on Pandora!" Kevin and Marvin started to retreat from the two brothers, with the former looking a little apologetic with accidentally sparking the argument between them. "And if you really didn't think you could trust me with it, then you wouldn't have trusted Ally or Jack back on Pandora either!"

"Guys, come on, don't fight-

Bryan's words got drowned out by the two Frederick brothers going at it, but at the very least you could tell that he was trying to stop the arguing. The tension in the air was palatable, bad enough that it only took a single point of difference for that argument to start, somewhat like lighting a usually carefree match in a room that was filled with flammable gas. Right then the problem seemed less like it was going to be the Alpha who took us out, but the infighting that would destroy us from the inside out.

"Oh dear, I really think we should do something about that" Katra worried to herself, but it was just loud enough that the seven of us waiting around the three brothers could hear. Both Kevin and Marvin as well as Tanner and Paul nodded their heads, knowing that they probably should intervene, but it was clear that they were worried that it would somehow be akin to adding gasoline to an already out of control blaze. Blaire and I were keen to actually get things done however, rather than waiting around for them to tire themselves out, so we looked at each other for a moment to see the confirmation in each other’s eyes that we were going to do something about it.

Taking two of her fingers into her mouth, Blaire blew an incredibly loud whistle that punched through the arguing going on between Jfred and Matthias, who were jolted enough by the loud noise to stop bickering and look over at the two of us.

"Pull yourselves together, we don't have time to stand around arguing about whether people do or don't make jokes during this time" I thoroughly scolded the both of them, the both of them taking a moment to realise how childish their argument had actually been before looking sheepish about starting it. "Kevin, I do agree with Jfred that jokes probably will lift our spirits, but tone it down just a little, okay?"

"Gotcha" Kevin acknowledged with a small salute towards me, before he seemed to ponder a little bit on why it was me that was giving around the orders rather than the usual person. "One last joke before I put my serious face on though, who wears the pants around here?"

"I do" Matthias jumped right back into his leadership role, picking up one of three empty injectors that he had placed on a nearby table before gesturing to me, Kevin and Marvin to sit in three chairs that he had prepared before everyone had arrived. "I need two other people to help me out to collect blood samples from these three, preferably people who have steady hands"

"Hey man, I'm fine with anyone doing it as long as it isn't Jfred" Kevin joked, but then subsequently looked horrified when Jfred picked up one of the injectors with a devilish glint in his eyes. "No, no that isn't funny Joey!"

"I'm just kidding man, I was going to ask Blaire if she wanted to do it" Jfred shifted over to the calm and poised Blaire, holding out the injector backwards towards her so that the needle was facing him, sort of as if he was handing a pair of scissors to her rather than a piece of medical equipment. She accepted it from him with a little bit of a chuckle, especially when Kevin seemed to exaggerate extreme relief at the fact it wasn't going to be his enthusiastic brother-in-law that was going to be doing the work.

"What's the blood going to be used for anyway?" Paul was the final one to pick up an injector, his calm and measured hands being the next best thing for the trio of injectors. He specifically made a beeline towards me sitting in the leftmost chair out of the three that had been set there, even though he had to sharply cut a diagonal path directly in front of both Blaire and Matthias to get to me, his movements being seen as a bit odd by Matthias who looked at him a bit suspiciously for a moment... Before seemingly deciding it wasn't important enough to dwell on for too long.

"Wait, are you thinking of using my theory on the bithids and sithids?" Marvin asked his brother-in-law, to which Matthias nodded his head with a slight smile on his face. At the confused faces of the rest of us however, Marvin did at least do the basic honour of explaining what he was talking about. "Bithids and sithids are things in our blood, exclusively to our variant of the human race with the Alpha, Beta and Omega. Sithids, which are found in abundance within the Alpha of our species, essentially causes the increased testosterone within their blood. Bithids are similar, but they do the opposite in trying to kill testosterone and are found in Omega instead. It's uh... It's generally why most Alpha are male, because females often don't have the capability to create enough sithids and testosterone to fit into the Alpha group"

"Interesting. That's also probably why a lot of Omega are female too, because they have less testosterone than males" I started to theorize things alongside Marvin, actually missing the times when I could talk about things for hours with another Omega. He grinned as I started to link a couple of the things he had already figured out himself, feeling just that little bit closer to him in the process. "What do bithids and sithids do if they end up encountering each other in the same body?"

"See, I was wondering about that" Marvin flinched a little once Matthias successfully pulled out the injector, the three injectors now being full with a deep red liquid from our bodies. The moment the blood was prepared, Marvin seemed to take over, standing up from his chair and preparing several different liquids from a case of chemicals in the middle of the table in the room. "In some rare cases a person will be tested by their blood to see what their class is if they haven't gone through a maturing phase at a certain age, which is what happened with me and Kevin, and at the testing company I figured out by asking a couple of simple questions that a person only ever has bithids  _or_ sithids, never both"

"What about Beta?"

"Ah, they don't have either. They have something else in their brain that reacts strongly to a certain neuron, which is how they get their strong affinity for a particular talent from memory. I think it's called fathom, but researchers don't like to check in the brain so it's never definitively been tested" Marvin rambled a little bit about what belonged in Beta as he pulled out a vial of an extremely clear liquid, with the label on it stating that it was a compound called 'havum'. "Now, if we put havum into the blood of an Omega, it strips away the blood cells and lipids, which leaves us with just the bithids"

Marvin dropped around three drops via a little dropper into the container of one of the injectors, the one that had drawn his blood, before swishing it around. After only a couple of seconds the red colour soon disappeared, leaving us with a shimmering blue colour, which was somehow mesmerizing to figure out that it was inside our blood.

"And that, is why Omega are often associated with the colour blue" Marvin proudly showed the injector around to everyone in the room, obviously hearing the awe-struck noises that several of us were making with the revelation. "Now, to figure out how it reacts to sithids, we have two different ways of testing it. Either we get blood from an Alpha and do the same process before mixing them, or we directly inject it into an Alpha"

"I say we do the injection method" Jfred suggested, as he could no doubt figure out that Marvin had been researching it for some kind of battle advantage over Alpha. "It's not exactly like an enemy will stand around and let you draw blood, do the havum stuff, and then inject that back into them"

"Dude, you do realise that means we'll have to inject it into you or Bryan, right?" Tanner made sure that Jfred knew what they were signing up for, which it seemed to be as if they did. "You're not worried about the side effects that might happen?"

"In a normal person lowered testosterone generally only causes mild problems with reproduction" Kevin backed up his brother’s research, obviously having a hand in some of it as well. "After all, that weird guard that attacked Mila back at her apartment was dealing with a suit that was pumping excessive levels of sithids into his system and he seemed to survive until Gunner took a blade to his neck"

"Wait; is  _that_ what that suit was doing to him?" I asked incredulously, wondering on Alfu how painful that must have been for the guard. "But with the same logic that Marvin was saying, shouldn't sithids look red?"

"It was a mixture of sithids and steroids. It was quite volatile a reaction, which is why it showed up as neon green rather than a normal colour" Marvin explained it the best he could, but he could see the small but vital question in my eyes about how he knew what the guy in the suit was injecting himself with. "Kevin stole a piece of the suit when we were at the crime scene, when we were trying to stop that old man from touching the body"

"I didn't steal it! I just borrowed it, and I didn't really think he was going to ask for it back anytime soon" Kevin protested the notion of him stealing anything, but Marvin just rolled his eyes at the way his brother was trying to explain away what was essentially still stealing.

"He stole it" Marvin didn't care about the nuances of it, his brother typically making a sound of indignation, but it did make me wonder about the legality of it all. But as much as I had a burning question about how real our case was in the court trial, it would have to be saved for another time. "Matt, you said that this injector was modified by Connor?"

"Yeah, I managed to get him to modify around three of our injectors before... Before they went to the Isles" Matthias seemed to waver a little when he was reminded of the Isles, as so far we hadn't gotten anything out of that in our favour, which he likely was wearing a little bit heavily as he had been the ones to send us unarmed there. He hadn't even heard about the sword shattering into a third of the original size, and if I was being completely honest at the time, I was scared that giving him that news would only make his guilt even worse. "If you press this button at the side it launches the needle and vial at someone like a crossbow"

"Fire it at me then, because I'm the least likely one to have problems happening if it affects my reproductive systems" Jfred offered himself up, jokingly sending Bryan a wink and a nudge, as he was married to Jfred and Matthias' sister. After sufficient people had sighed at the joke (while Jfred just looked pleased with himself), everyone shifted out of the way and Marvin had handed over the injector to Tanner, who had more knowledge with guns than Marvin did.

With a confident hand behind him, Tanner pressed the button and fired the injector, the needle and vial flying through the air after a small  _'pew'_ sounded from the mechanism. The needle landed directly into Jfred's shoulder, right between the neck and his shoulder blade. At first it didn't seem to do anything after all of the blue liquid disappeared into his body, with Jfred shrugging both his shoulders as everyone looked confused.

"It honestly doeshn't feel that baaaaa..." Jfred first attempted to say, but the growing slur and droopy look in his eyes seemed to say that it was actually doing something to him very quickly. The moment he attempted to say his last word in the sentence did his eyes began to roll into the back of his head, before completely losing consciousness and needing to be caught by Bryan before he collapsed onto the floor.

"Oh god, is... Is he-

"No, I can feel him breathing just fine" Bryan dispelled Blaire's momentary worry that the bithids had caused catastrophic damage to Jfred, evidenced quite clearly a second later when Jfred started to snore very loudly. For some reason the slight worry in the situation seemed to make Bryan focus on the long scar running through Jfred's right cheek, possibly because that had also been made in a moment where people had been worried for his life. "Besides, knowing how lucky Jfred is, even if it was fatal he'd likely find some miraculous way to survive it"

"So, the bithids work perfectly to knock out an Alpha" Marvin concluded quite accurately, gently fiddling with the injector that Tanner had handed back to him to place a new empty vial into it. "I hope you two aren't too attached to your blood, because we might be able to make a number of doses to help the recovery team out when we find out where Gunner, Connor and Bobby are"

"I'm not very attached to my blood, but I'm also not too fond of those needles" Kevin put out what was likely the general thoughts associated with needles, which did earn him a couple of sympathetic laughs from those of us who also didn't like them very much, but it also seemed like he wasn't going to deny us the blood we needed to get the job done. "What is the actual plan for getting the three amigos back anyway?"

"Unfortunately, I can't risk sending Jfred and Bryan off in case they catch wind of where we are situated. Besides, this is going to be sneaking in, getting who we can and getting out, not going in guns blazing" Matthias sighed, knowing that the mere fact that we would be without Alpha would once again put us in danger. But the fact that our entire stockpile of weapons, supplies and information all was at the company, we would be ruined if they took over the company, so sadly we didn't have a choice. "Everyone else will be going in the recovery team with Paul and Tanner acting as the leaders. Once Jfred wakes up, both he and Bryan will resume training Marvin and Kevin so that you guys have at least a decent amount of muscle power in your group"

"Sorry, but I'm not going in the recovery team" Blaire put her foot down that she wasn't going to be charging off with the rest of us, which... Admittedly, did make me feel a little more nervous as we would have one less person watching our back. It seemed like I wasn't the only one concerned with it, as Matthias also was not that pleased with the idea in the slightest. "I need to fix whatever weird power dynamic is going on with you and your younger brother, as that can't be a common occurrence if we're fighting a war"

"...Alright, that does actually make sense" Matthias sighed a little with the idea of therapy going on that wasn't really his choice, but he did understand that fighting between each other was not a wise thing in the slightest. "I guess that means that Mila, Tanner and Paul will be the only ones to use the injectors, as we don't want to use our guns in a stealth kind of mission. Katra, I'm sorry but you have a talent to defend yourself while Mila doesn't, so that means we'll have to send you in without muscle training or weapons"

"Don't worry about me darling, I'll be able to walk rings around those guys before they can even smell my perfume" Katra wasn't bothered by the lack of weapon, demonstrating her talent for a split second by almost disappearing from our minds before reappearing in front of us like she somehow was part ghost. "I'll make sure to get all the lovelies out and give those nasty Alpha people a hiding!"

"Alright people, we have our jobs!" Matthias raised his voice a little to both empower and command the rest of us into action, with everyone standing up just that little bit straighter as he was talking to us. "Tanner and Paul, get Mila some flight and gun training in while I look for anything that even resembles the three missing guys. Blaire, I guess you need to get to your job of ensuring that everyone has their heads on straight, while Katra helps out Kevin and Marvin with making more of these vials. Bryan, once that lazy brother of mine wakes up, you get onto training Kevin and Marvin in their downtime"

Everyone gave their affirmations either in salutes, nods of the head or simple 'yes sir's. For a moment I felt like there was something odd going on with my veins, like some... Really warm feeling, but it seemed to disappear after a moment’s notice without much trouble.

"Unless you happen to be on fire, or if the building is on fire, I don't want anyone diverging from their tasks! Everyone is dismissed until further notice!"


	32. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings; some mentions of possible suicide

Kevin, Marvin and I were bundled into the backseat of an all-terrain vehicle, most notably trying our best to not bang our heads into the mounted gun that was in the middle of the rear seating. We could tell the vehicle was generally not used for everyday transportation, but it was the best thing we had besides the Banshee, which was flying above us towards our destination. Blaire and Katra had to stay behind at the base to take care of the Frederick brothers, so that left us with the time to go out into the vast Gafi desert out to the East of the main city to train.

With Bryan and Tanner in the front, it left me some time to look out the sides of the ATV, out towards the right I could just barely spot the vast Lomu woods at the edge of the desert we had been riding in for the last hour, and to my left the ocean could barely be seen at the horizon... Where the tall pillars of salt known as the Centica Isles could be seen. Kevin, who was the one sitting to my left, clearly noticed me looking that way with conflicted emotions and immediately offered some comforting words.

"We'll find them" He assured me despite the fact he knew just as much as I did about where the three guys had been taken (which was nothing), but somehow it did actually manage to reassure me slightly.

"I know, I'm just... I'm just nervous" I sighed, trying to shift myself a little bit more to find a more comfortable position between the two guys. No such luck, I was still partially perched on the outside of their legs due to their wide legs and the cramped backseat. No wonder I didn't think they were Omega, they were built more like weak Alpha, with the only examples of them not being weak coming in the fact that a Beta could easily overpower them. "It's cramped back here"

"Aww, are you saying that you don't want to be super close to us both?" Kevin went straight back to teasing me, having a devilish look in his eyes that I knew all too well. "Sounds like someone needs a hug!"

I squealed loudly as his hug turned into tickling instead, for a moment my laughter drowning out the loud sound of both the ATV and the Banshee's engines, which some small bits of smiles creeping up on Bryan and Tanner's faces.

"Alright kids, settle down back there, we're almost there" Bryan brought us back to attention as we came to a big rock outcropping, one that looked like it would shield us from prying eyes. We turned into it with our vehicle, with the Banshee hovering overhead until it found a flat enough spot to land down. "Tanner, you take one of the injectors and teach Mila how to fire it. I'm taking the other two to teach Marvin and Kevin"

"I thought Matthias wanted to leave the injector firing to Mila, Paul and I?" Tanner seemed confused with the change of plans, but Kevin and Marvin didn't seem bothered as they climbed out, likely thinking it was nothing more than a miscommunication between them. I needed a bit longer to clamber out because I was in the middle, which meant that I lingered long enough to see the stern look in Bryan's eyes, and Tanner's reflecting back a worried one. "Oh..."

"I just want to ensure there's a back-up plan in case something goes wrong"

I scrambled to get out of the vehicle, as I didn't really want to hear any further about what they were talking about. There was always a chance that something could happen to one of us, but it didn't mean it was nice to hear about Kevin or Marvin being told that they would have to fire our injectors if we got killed. I decided to cling to Paul once he came out of his Banshee, even as Bryan and Tanner finally came over to sort everything out.

"I'm going to be training Kevin and Marvin in here, you guys might want to get some flight training in before gun training" Bryan already got started, picking up several rocks on placing them on top of several different ones to prepare for target practice. Tanner seemed unsure even as he gently took the final injector from Bryan, which was of course empty to not waste any of our precious bithids. "I'd suggest we get started"

* * *

Flying in Paul's vulture, which he had stowed away in the back of the Banshee, it seemed almost like we were an entire world away. He had extended it to the two-seater version of itself, allowing me to sit in the front cockpit despite the fact that it meant he would be seeing less than me.

"So, you see the steering wheel in front of you?" He asked me, the gaps between our two seats being big enough that I could hear him perfectly fine. The steering wheel he was referring to looked quite similar to one that would have been in a typical car, with some slight adjustments so that it looked closer to what a pilot in a normal airline airplane would be controlling. I gave him a small hum of acknowledgment as I took the wheel in my hands, feeling the strong power behind the ship as he still continued to pilot it from behind me. "I know it's not the original controls of a vulture, but that's because this version couldn't handle the handlebar controls if I have to focus on multiple things at once. Anyway, we're a good eighty metres off the ground, so we shouldn't be running into any kind of rock formations or other traffic. She's all yours, treat her well"

"You don't want to run me through how it works first? I thought she was your pride and joy" I couldn't help but ask nervously as I could feel him relinquishing controls on his side and leaving everything to me. For the first couple of seconds I wasn't sure about it all, just doing my best to keep it at an even speed and soaring straight ahead, but I could hear him chuckle behind me in a gentle way that seemed to say that he wasn't worried at all.

"I find it's easier to understand when you just give it a go. I can always take over the controls back here in case something goes wrong, so I wouldn't worry" His laid back attitude started to ease my tense shoulders just that little bit, feeling like it was going to be as ready as I ever was going to be. "Besides, don't tell little ol' Vulture here, but you're kind of more special to me than she is"

I giggled a little as I gently pat the metal inside of the Vulture in a gentle kind of reassurance despite the fact both me and Paul knew that there was no way she would actually be offended by it, but somehow it still made me happy to hear him admit that I was more important.

With a deep breath in, I gently turned the steering wheel to my right to test it out, and found that it quite easily glided through the air to my right. It moved a lot sharper than it would have for a vehicle, which meant that I couldn't just swing it willy-nilly unless I was planning to make myself really sick in the process.

"That's it; little corrections" Paul praised me as I brought the ship back around to fly over where Marvin, Kevin and Bryan were training, and where Tanner was watching us fly overhead. At one point Paul did deem it somewhat necessary to slide his thin arms in the gaps at the side of my chair to shift my arms slightly so that the ship was once again straight rather than at an angle. "It can be a bit strange trying to balance yourself over the ground beneath you"

"Is it really difficult to do that in space?" I asked him out of curiosity, as like flying a ship, I hadn't particularly ever remembered doing anything of the sort.

"Nah, that's a lot easier. If the ship you're chasing after is upside down, chances are it's you who's upside down" Paul laughed softly, the sound of it all being like music to my ears. I had never particularly paid much attention to his voice; mainly because there hadn't been many times that I had been on my own with Paul... Somehow other people were always there, and in the crowd of voices that usually was the five guys who had been showing interest in me, it wasn't that surprising that others always managed to be louder than Paul.

He was always the quietest out of the five of them, and even when the other five were talking softly, there was something more distinct about the others. Bobby's deep voice, Tanner's kindness, Gunner's unbridled confidence to Connor's loud presence... But Paul, now that I was listening to him when he was speaking softly, his voice was akin to smooth honey. If I were to close my eyes, I would almost get that image of a country guy (which I realised was a bit of a funny coincidence considering the voice he had put on when he had first met me), who spoke with a warmth to their words and had rough calloused hands from hard but honest work.

"Ooh, we should prank Tanner" Right as that image appeared in my mind another side of him reappeared, pointing to a small black dot against the yellow sand on the ground who likely was Tanner. "If you drop to twenty meters we should be high enough to not actually hurt them, but the air we rush past might knock them off their feet"

Perhaps it was the fact that we were in a moment where the possibility of dying was quite high that spurred me on to actually pull off the move, carefully lowering myself down until the dashboard of the Vulture told us that we were at twenty metres above the ground. Once I carefully lined up myself to dash between the two pillars that were standing on either side of where the others were located, I pushed the Vulture as fast as it could go, zooming between the two pillars like a bullet zipping through.

"Wahoo!" I cried out victoriously, loving the feeling of how the ship was soaring through the air like a hot knife through butter, my enthusiasm seeming to make Paul endlessly happy if his cheerful laughter was anything to go on. Only a second later did we get a call straight on the dashboard of the Vulture, and I possibly made the rookie mistake of picking it up only to hear Bryan's annoyed voice coming through the speakers.

"I knew that Paul would probably pull a stunt like that" Bryan sighed heavily, but his loud sighing wasn't able to hide the loud sounds of laughter in the background of his call, the three different voices sounding like the remaining two Omega and single Beta actually took it quite well. "Cut it out man, you're going to be a bad influence on Mila"

"I'm not flying the ship, she is" Paul cheekily informed his boss, obviously quite proud of my rebellious streak. I giggled a moment later, which was enough for Bryan to hear that it actually  _had_ been me, which made him sigh even deeper. "Come on Mila, let's do it one more time!"

"Paul! Don't-

Paul cut off the communication with a single push of the button, giggling along with me as we went for another run, watching with glee as Tanner, Marvin and Kevin were still heartily laughing on the ground as we went through one again. But even though we were certainly having fun, Paul did sober up a little bit once he saw Bryan hurriedly trying to call us again.

"Ah, guess the fun's over for now" Paul was coming down from his high, which was enough to see that we likely would have seriously gotten in trouble if we didn't straighten up by then. After all, there was actually a good reason for us to be flying in his Vulture for the mission, not just for messing about in. "...Let's rise up a bit and try to land on that flat rock for a bit"

"You don't want to keep flying for a bit?" I asked him, but even though there wasn't much I could see of him I could spy a small shake of the head.

"Honestly, the most difficult part of flying is trying to keep it stationary in the air, and parking it" Paul said the same thing that I could remember my father telling me once, as one time the latter had told me about a time when he had to fix a Viking while it was still in the air, which was a hair raising tale no matter how old I was. "Besides, I want to spend some time alone with you for a moment. Just ten minutes, and then we'll be off again"

Parking it was incredibly easy, as Paul had installed small jets underneath the engine itself, which just meant that I had to hover over a location where I wanted to place it and then gently bring it down. The reason why Paul had chosen the particular rock was obvious once I popped open the dimmed glass hood, as the sun by that point was starting to descend below the horizon by that point in time, and the rock had a perfect view of the horizon over all of the other large rock outcroppings dotting the landscape.

"It would have been a bit more difficult to fly in this sunlight anyway" Paul almost seemed to be trying to find excuses for why we were allowed to stop for a moment, but I honestly could understand that a small break was likely important for anyone. He soon smoothly hopped out of his seat and slid down to sit on the rock, leaning with his back against the cool metal of his ship. "You want to join me?"

I did, as I popped out of my own seat just a second after he invited me to sit next to him, soon resting comfortably beside him with my head rested against his shoulder. It was as bony as always, but it was comforting simply because I knew it was his, and it only got better once one of his hands reached behind me to gently start threading his fingers through my hair again. It was the moment when he took a deep breath in and released the biggest sigh I had ever heard from him that gave away that he was stressed.

"You okay?" I asked him, but it was clear from the initial noncommittal hum that the answer to that was not going to be an affirmative one.

"...Not really" He confirmed what I had been already thinking about, but the mystery was of course the reasons for why his answer was so, not the answer itself. "I... I really thought I was going to lose you when I found you back on those Isles, and since learning that you've joined the P.W.C. that feeling hasn't really gone away"

"...Sorry" I did honestly apologise, as no matter how badly I wanted to fight for this cause and deal with the people who had inadvertently caused my father’s death, I hadn't really wanted my decision to hurt anyone who was already in the cause, let alone the five guys who loved me.

"It's okay; I understand the feeling of not wanting to kick on this problem to the next generation. The more annoying thing is the fact that I have to hide my concern for you" He reminded me of the rule that Matthias had set up, which frankly had been a thorn that stuck in my side quite a number of times by that point. It was one thing to not want to have drama between people who had possibly broken up with each other, but so far the only thing I had seen it do was cause unwanted stress on members of the true P.W.C. "Every reassuring movement, every little touch or whisper I have to look at with a metaphorical microscope to make sure it won't ring Matt's alarm bells. Before I could have my private moments with you - granted, those were few and far between - but they still were there. Now, I feel more than a little suffocated by how closely everyone is working with each other, which means that my selfish side of just wanting to make sure that you're okay has to bury its head in the sand, and I hate that"

I wasn't sure which one of us had moved first, be it him or me, but I had wriggled closer against him at practically the same time as his arms had come fully around to hold me close against him. It was a very fearful grip that he held on me for a moment, undoubtedly being eerily similar to the one he had on me when I was poisoned on the Isles, showing how scared he was at the possibility of me dying. That very same sentiment was reflected back in the way I clutched his shirt close to me, as honestly... I didn't want to imagine the possibility that I would return from this war without him.

"...Can I be selfish and ask the biggest favour from you?" He broke the tense and worried silence between us for a moment, but he only seemed to go on when I tilted my head to look up into his hazel eyes. I wondered for a moment what he saw in my light brown eyes, but all he needed to see was the conviction to actually hear him out, which he found quite easily. "In eighteen years’ time when we're fighting that war, if there's at all the chance of me being able to save your life - regardless of whether it costs me my own life - you let me save you"

"I'm sorry, but I can't promise that" My response was immediate and it straight away upset Paul greatly, as his hazel eyes immediately showed how upset he was that I refused him. But as much as these guys seemed to understand the pain it would cause themselves if I somehow died, it had yet to hit home for them how much their deaths would affect me, especially if it happened to be a situation if they all gave their lives for mine and I was the only one to return home. "Paul, you're _my_ reason to come home. Even if there was the remote chance that all of you could give your lives to save me - which let's face it, is very slim as it is - I don't want that! Imagine how you would feel if everyone gave their lives just so you would come home, you'd feel horrible because then you would likely feel that you're the reason everyone died"

For a moment we both remained there, stubbornly wanting to make sure that at least the other would survive the war... But the chances of us both surviving seemed to be slim. Even so, there was something I had to say to make it better.

"...Okay, so what about this? If one of us survives while the other doesn't, then the one that survives will... Follow after them" I suggested the idea, watching him closely to see what his reaction would be. There naturally was the instant reaction of shock, which was followed by confusion and then a possible sense of worry for others that we'd be leaving behind afterwards. "This might be a bit of a shock for you to hear Paul, but... I don't want to come home without you"

That most certainly was a shock to him, as there hadn't ever been such words coming from my lips, finally making him aware that I cared... No, that I  _loved_ him just as much as he loved me. There was utter relief in his beautiful hazel eyes, as even though he was certain about his feelings for me there had always been that doubt as to whether I loved him more than the other four.

"You're not worried about the other four?" There still was obviously that small bit of doubt in his mind, and I supposed it was time to really make up my mind. War was not a time to be deliberating on which guy out of five men you loved the most, especially when the answer seemed abundantly clear.

Even if I wasn't including the problems that Tanner had with taking on far too much blame than was necessary and Gunner's oddly distant attitude in being open even after I learned about the Alpha army, none of them had even dared to tell me the truth like Paul had. Paul had given me arguably the most thoughtful gift, the little ladybug saving me in my time of need. And although the guys couldn't really help it, Paul was the only one that hadn't charmed me because of their smooth voice, confidence, body or silly quirks... He had just charmed me by being himself, and to my delight that side of him was unchanged even after learning about the Alpha army. That just meant that I had fallen in love with all of him, not with an exaggerated version like the others had unfortunately gotten into the habit of showing.

"They'll understand" I truly believed those words coming out of my mouth, as I was confident that the other four were good enough people to not hate either me or Paul regardless of how things would have happened with them. As much as it was going to be hard for both them and me to get over the hill that was going to be a breakup, but we'd handle it somehow. "Paul Kennedy, will you go steady with me?"

His answer came quite readily in the form of kissing me softly, before breaking away with an unmissable smile on his face.

"I'd love nothing more" He admitted it to me, his eyes even seeming to get a little misty from how overwhelmingly happy he was, which I couldn't help but return his beaming smile. "Wherever you and I go, if something does happen during the war, we'll be waiting for the other"


	33. The Good Side

When me and Paul landed back down on the ground near the rock outcropping where the others were, we honestly were expecting Bryan to come storming over and biting our heads off from how stupid we had been. Nothing like that happened, instead having Bryan gently gesture me forward until he could comfortably speak to me without shouting.

"Matthias wants to see you back at the base Mila" Bryan informed me, having apparently forgotten about my misdemeanour earlier simply because he had more important things to worry about. Which I supposed that he did, so it was a nice touch to actually see him leading us decently. "Tanner should be able to take you back and come back for us in a couple of hours"

"Why aren't the rest of us heading back as well?" Marvin was the one to ask that question, but I could spy the fact that Paul was looking like he was thinking along the same lines as him.

"I'd like to get some more gun training in with Kevin, as his aim is horrible. Besides that, Marvin should be getting some small bits of flight training in with Paul just to be on the safe side" It really sounded like Bryan was trying to cover every basis that he could find, even if it came with the unfortunate side effect that the rest of us would imagine me being dead. Tanner shifted uncomfortably with the image he must have conjured up in his mind, before somewhat robotically moving himself to the driver’s seat of the ATV without another word. "Tanner, do you think you can come back in three hours?"

Tanner grunted a response, but it was hard to tell if it was him honestly answering the question or if it was just him acknowledging that someone was talking to him. But either way, Bryan seemed to accept that it was the answer he was hoping for. Besides, any further noises from us likely would have been overshadowed by Kevin's subsequent protest in indignation anyway.

"My aim isn't horrible!"

Kevin's remark did exactly as Jfred had predicted it would, making the majority of us laugh. Me included, as I waved goodbye to the four people remaining behind as I clambered into the ATV's shotgun seat. The vehicle rumbled into life and soon we were both on our way to the company building again.

The ride back was... Awkward. Not only did I know that I had to tell Tanner sometime that I was not going to be in a relationship anymore with him, but I was noticing how much worse he was taking the news of me joining the Prevention of Widespread Chaos than Paul did. Paul already had some small problems in the form of him being that tiny bit more stressed, but Tanner seemed like he was going to collapse in on himself in contrast. Other than him laughing when me and Paul were messing about, he seemed like he hadn't really spoken or shown any emotion at all since I had officially joined.

As much as it felt horrible to do so, I really needed to snap him out of his zombie-like state that he had gotten himself into, and the only way I knew how to was to bring up the one thing that would likely utterly hurt him. Even if the initial breakup hurt, he had to recover and rebuild himself so that we actually had the fully functioning Tanner back.

"So, I've decided on who I love" My remark startled him greatly, possibly even just because of the fact I had frightened him by suddenly speaking up after such a long stretch of silence. Whether by instinct or not, his foot immediately searched for the brake on the vehicle and slammed it down, which sent the vehicle into a shuddering fit before nearly skidding across the dusty road. Eventually the ATV's tyres found the grip they needed and brought the vehicle to a sudden stop, leaving us a little shocked from nearly flying off the road.

"Jesus! I... I'm sorry, you took me by surprise" Tanner left it quite ambiguous as to what kind of surprise he was referring to, his shaky hands gripping the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip as he looked over at me to make sure I hadn't slammed into the seat-belt keeping me safe. "Are you okay?"

"I do hope that's not a habit of yours" I tried my hardest to turn my tone towards a joking one, but it was clear from the dejected look in his eyes that I had failed in that attempt. If anything, it had clearly angled more towards a scathing remark, as my mind had leaped to the worst possible scenario of him pulling that sort of stunt during a mission where we really couldn't afford to do that.

"...Sorry" He apologised for it, hurt obvious in his voice as he carefully started up the vehicle again and got us back underway. From the worried look present in his eyes, it seemed clear to me that he likely could see where my discussion was going, and he didn't particularly seem to like it. "What were you saying?"

I did have to admit, I found it quite brave of him to start up the conversation again despite not liking the tone of where it was all going. While it likely was because he didn't want to be walking around on eggshells for the rest of the trip back, it did serve to soften the edges of my somewhat nervous feelings on how I was going to handle this. At the very least, I wasn't going to be dawdling and leaving him in anguish for long.

"I said; I've decided on who I love" I repeated the words I had said before, seeing the same worried emotions returning with a higher intensity to them. He likely already knew how this was going to happen, but it didn't make it any easier for him or me. "I'm sorry Tanner, but it's not you"

"...Oh" The full brunt of his emotions took a little to burst over the surface, but I knew he was an emotional person naturally. I still felt bad, so I gave him that privacy of looking out of the front windscreen rather than directly at his face. Just barely I could spy out of the corner of my eye that he brought up one of arms to rub away tears so that he could still see, but it was enough to show how heartbroken he was with the news. "...Who is it?"

"Sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea that I tell you who I decided on" It felt like I was figuratively driving salt into the already sore wound that was our relationship, but there was at the very least a method to my madness. "If I do tell you, you'll likely unconsciously give something away by body language and your eyes constantly zipping to them once we save the three guys"

Right there, my choice of words had been very deliberate. Despite the fact it technically wasn't giving anything away on who I did love, it did give the  _impression_ that it was one of the three that had been kidnapped. And as much as I cared about Tanner, there was a higher chance that he would behave and not stare at anybody if there was a larger pool of people to choose from in those three. Someday when Matthias relaxed about those rules, then maybe they could learn the truth... But until then, I had to protect Paul.

"Great, so not only am I completely useless as a lover, but I also can't be trusted" Tanner didn't seem to pick up much on the implications on who it actually was, sounding far more bitter about the fact that I was keeping the information from him. I had to bite my tongue momentarily to not snap back at him about how he had done something just like that to me (the Alpha army, being the main one in my mind), instead taking a deep breath in and trying to understand why he was being so bitter. He had after all just gotten his heart broken, so the emotional distress from that was momentarily clouding his judgement, but I knew he was better than that. "That's just wonderful"

"Tanner, part of the reason why I decided that you weren't the right person for me was precisely  _because_ you take on far too much guilt and blame. When I get hurt, I don't need someone beating themselves six ways to Sunday because of something they couldn't help" I calmly tried to explain this to him, deciding to cross that barrier that I had put up between us. Even though I could feel how hurt he still was, he allowed me gently to lay a hand over one of his curled around the steering wheel, and we looked at each other in the eyes while the road while straight. "You're not completely useless as a lover, or as a person. You're... Just not the right person for me"

I didn't get a response back from him in any verbal sense, it apparently was too painful for that in that moment to speak, but eventually he opened his hand to gently grasp mine in his. For the next couple of minutes I provided him the support he needed, the both of us looking back out onto the road, before he eventually softly spoke.

"...Will he take care of you?" He asked softly, to which I nodded my head happily. My blindingly bright smile seemed to hurt him a little, as he knew it wasn't a smile directed at him, but eventually he managed to grit his teeth through the pain and the tears to give me a smile. "Okay then, that's what I need to hear. I'm not going to lie, it still hurts, but knowing that he'll take care of you will be enough for me"

We continued on like that for a good while down the road, holding each other’s hand softly until we got to the city and he truly needed both of his hands for the steering wheel. Intermittently there was a small sniffle from him, meaning that his sadness had returned for a short period of time, and each time I did my best to hand him a small tissue that we had spare in the glove box. As much as it did seem to still be a fresh wound, it was far better than the empty emotionless version of him I had been seeing for the last number of hours, so we both knew that things were going to work out.

Not that much later, we rolled into the garage of the company. The ATV calmly came to a halt and quieted itself down, leaving the both of us in a moment of silence. I already prepared to hop out of the vehicle and get going, as I knew Matthias was waiting for me, but I found myself hesitating once I couldn't hear him hop out onto the concrete at the same time as me. Once I circled around the vehicle to ask him what was wrong, it was quite obvious all over his face that he wasn't quite ready to join the rest of us in a completely serious manner yet.

"Ah, sorry... I'm not quite ready to come in yet" Tanner could already tell what I was intending to ask him, seeing me pause outside the driver’s side door to look at him. He truly was a gentle giant, evidenced by how red and puffy his eyes had gotten through it all, while I was completely dry eyed. I had cried plenty in the month I had been a part of P.W.C., and I felt that I couldn't really afford to do so anymore until everyone was safe... But that didn't mean that it was easy to see him in pain. "Don't want to tip Matthias off that something's up, you know?"

"Of course" I laughed a little, which he returned (if only a little bit), before I decided it was best to give him some privacy to collect himself. "Come in whenever you're ready"

A slight nod of the head was all I got before I decided to turn around and make my words follow what I did, marching over the concrete to one of the two large doorways that would lead me through the building. I didn't quite expect someone to come through one of those doors, considering the fact there only were four people in the building last I had checked (and one of them was unconscious at the time). It was pretty clear that it had to be Katra the moment the person's platinum blonde hair appeared, with the both of us narrowly avoiding crashing into one another because I had backpedalled a little.

"Oh! So sorry darling, I didn't know you were going to be back so soon" She immediately apologised with a giggle, dusting off my shoulders despite the fact neither of us actually went for a tumble on the ground. Her happy demeanour was like a ray of sunshine, which I really needed in that moment, further emphasised when I gently moved myself in to hug her. "Oh, darling, what happened?"

"Nothing, I just really needed this" I somewhat lied to her about how stressed I was feeling and about the breakup I had just done, gently peeling myself away from her to see that her eyes had drifted somewhat behind me to Tanner in the ATV. Even from across the garage we could both see his face hidden away in his arms against the steering wheel, which made me think a little bit on what was right for him. Even though I had promised him I was going to leave him alone, part of me felt that Katra was going to be the right person for him to vent and talk to, which made me ask for her assistance in that manner. "Tanner's kind of going through a rough time right now, would you mind checking up on him?"

"You don't mind? I mean, I'd love to more than anything else in the world, but I kind of got the eensy-weensy feeling in the world that he kind of preferred your company" Katra did seem to be quite noticeable in those terms, as it had been for a little while that Tanner admitted to me that he didn't know what to think of her in the very first days of her working for us. Of course, he didn't think that any more, but those initial feelings had likely stuck with Katra quite a bit more than he had intended.

"...I'm kind of the reason he's going through a rough time right now" I took the leap and admitted something to her that I likely wouldn't have if she were some random stranger. As I expected, it didn't take her that long to softly utter a gasp as it hit home what I was referring to. There had been enough hints for her to understand that we had broken that rule Matthias had set up, so she made sure to give me a look that promised that she wasn't going to tell anyone about it. "He just needs someone right now, and it can't really be me"

"Gotcha beautiful" She acknowledged what I asked of her, giving me a quick conspiring wink before she started to walk over to him with her clicking heels announcing her arrival as always. "I'll take care of him"

Those words were all I needed to hear, lingering for a moment near the doors to watch her approach him. Once she was actually outside his door did he seem to realise that she was there, even though there was no use of her power at all. She gently, if a bit insistently, ushered him out from behind his rigid position behind the steering wheel with a soft tone to her voice, before she bundled him into a big hug. Even at her tallest on her stiletto heels, she still wasn't quite to his height, but she managed to reach high enough to wrap her arms tightly around his neck. Whatever she had said to him, combined with that warmth that he needed, seemed to be enough to finally allow him to let go.

"Take care of each other" I softly whispered to myself, quiet enough so that it was only able to be heard by my own ears. With my heart as at rest as I could manage it under the circumstances, I pushed through the double doors in the garage and pushed on to where I expected Matthias to be.

The hallways were quiet, about as quiet as the night I had abruptly woken up before the trial I had gone through, with only the noise of my platform heels to accompany me. It was nowhere near as loud as Katra's heels, but somehow it did highlight how alone I felt without Paul... Or Tanner, or Matthias... But especially, my father.

I had always been surrounded by at least a singular person during my life. After my mother had died when I was young, my father was an ever-present part of my life even as I graduated school... And honestly, when my father had died in the fire, it had hit me incredibly hard that nobody from my school cared enough to stick around and support me through that time.

I suppose I had been feeling very alone since his death, with no goal in life beyond trying to survive... And even though I was scared out of my mind with the thought of charging into a way, it somehow felt right. Poetic in a way, as my father had spent his whole life providing assistance to the military of our tiny planet, trying to keep it safe from all manners of war and strife. There I was, doing the same thing as he would have done, just possibly on the wrong side of the law compared to him.

Before I could really dwell too long on the fact that these guys were all I had left, I noticed the light still being on in the medical bay. Just in case it happened to be something private going on in there, I gave the door a gentle knock.

"Who is it?" I was surprised to hear that it was Blaire, as she didn't particularly strike me as the type of person to be worried about who would be entering through the door.

"It's Mila" I answered simply, before I quickly heard a hum of recognition before Blaire softly gave me permission to enter. Once I walked in did I realise why she might have been skittish about letting people in, as she had laid Jfred across a set of chairs with his head resting in her lap. Resting on his chest was his grey baseball cap, which gently raised and lowered itself as he breathed calmly. One of Blaire's thumbs was gently tracing over the scar running around his right cheek, right as she raised her eyes at greet me with her usual demure smile. "...Hey"

"Hello" Blaire greeted me with her usual relaxed manner, acting completely nonchalant about me seeing her flaunt the rule that was well known. I supposed I didn't really have much to say about it, considering the fact that I had broken that very same rule five times over, but it certainly was quite noteworthy to realise that she had gone for the man she wanted just like she had said she would. "Matthias is in his office"

"Ah, thank you" I took that as her silent indication that she still wanted some more alone time with Jfred before it was all hands on deck again, which I sympathised with greatly because I now wished for the same with Paul. I did feel the cheeky inclination to quickly comment on what I saw before I left however, no matter how much it might have felt out of place any other time. "By the way, I'm really happy for you both"

"The same goes for you and Paul" Blaire already beat me to the punch by predicting accurately on who I had chosen for, with a raised eyebrow coming from me in question for how she had managed to see it coming. "Even before Paul admitted it in his last session with me, both you and he always just seemed to be able to support each other so well. One of you would light up whenever the other came into the room, so it didn't surprise me at all to hear it from him"

The same beaming smile returned to my face, the thought of Paul being open enough to mention me in his psychologist session was that much more meaningful to me than anything else she could have secretly told me about. She chuckled softly as she noticed that once again I was 'lighting up', even with something as simple as my lover being mentioned by name.

"There you go again" She pointed it out to me, which caused me to just giggle and shrug my shoulders helplessly as I couldn't help it. "Go on now, Matthias is still waiting for you. You might want to wipe the smile off your face by the time you get there however, as I'm not too sure he'll see it as happily as I do"

"Thank you Blaire" I thanked her for what seemed to be the millionth time in the short span I had known her, which once again earned me a composed response with a 'you're very welcome', before I closed the door and actually got back on track. It was just another reason why we couldn't fail, both Jfred, Tanner and Paul giving Blaire, Katra and I that extra courage we needed to fight with all of our might in this war.

But still, I couldn't shake the feeling that my meeting with Matthias was somehow going to change things unexpectedly...


	34. Database

Only a couple of corners away from the medical bay was where I knew Matthias' office to be, which I had never actually set foot in personally. Even now that we were a part of the true P.W.C., it still felt a little daunting to be called there, like I had been called to the principal’s office at school for doing something wrong.

The door wasn't all that intimidating, it being a single wooden door that was tucked away near the corner of a hallway, the only sign it actually held anything important coming in the form of a tiny placard that held Matthias' name on it. Nervously, I knocked on the door, hearing an immediate response from Matthias from within the room.

"Come in" The response was a bit muffled through the door, but I could still hear it clearly as if he had been facing the door the moment he had said it. I turned the knob and entered the room, only to be taken by surprise by how dark and cramped it was in there. Possibly even more surprising was the fact that Matthias was sat in a swivel office chair, specifically turned around from his desk to aim his gun at whoever entered the room. Once he realised it was me however, the pronounced frown on his face went away and he clicked the safety back on his gun before tucking it safely away on the inside of his jacket. "Oh, it's you. Sorry, old paranoid habits"

"You wanted to speak to me?" I asked him, purposefully avoiding the glaringly obvious question that lingered in the air on where on Alfu he had picked up habits that made him point a gun at whoever was going to enter a room of his. He nodded his head, but it was a little hard to see with how dark it was in the room.

"Yes, I did. Please, come sit here while I finish up the last of these tasks" He invited me to sit in a chair that was just a little bit to the left of his, swivelling the chair around so that his back was to me as his fingers returned to the keyboard beneath a massive computer screen in front of his face. "Close the door please, it's hard to concentrate with the differing light. Also be careful of the cables over the floor, Bryan and Jfred often unknowingly pull out cables when they come in here"

I obeyed his request by shutting the door behind me, the room being entirely swathed in darkness except for the bright blue light coming from the computer's holographic screen. It changed the atmosphere from an office covered in cables and computer parts into a dark cave, the blue light giving everything an ethereal glow to it, but mostly acting as some kind of aging device because it seemed to highlight every wrinkle he had gained in his stressful life. After nearly tripping over a particularly important looking cable (like he had warned me to be careful of) I managed to safely find security in the seat next to him.

"Nearly done here" He informed me the moment his peripheral vision told him that I was ready for him, obviously hurrying up just a little bit to make the process go a bit faster. The screen he was staring intently at was going at a million miles an hour, it looked like it was trying to burn some kind of program of his onto a CD and a USB simultaneously, and he was constantly fixing whatever mistakes he seemed to notice cropping up along the way. But the most astounding thing had to be his fingers! They weren't typing; it was like they were dancing across the holographic keyboard, with only the occasional movement towards the backspace button to fix a slight grammatical error in the code he was constructing.

Ten seconds later the machine beeped a loud affirmative noise before announcing that the code checker had found no errors with what he had constructed and was then going to implement it fully on the CD and USB respectively. With a satisfied sigh, he gently stretched out his tired arms and popped the knuckles on his fingers, which left me just enough time to notice that the ever important code checker had been made by no-one else than Matthias himself... I would have almost assumed it was him showing off what he could do with computers when he turned to me with a serious expression on his face, reminding me that he likely hadn't called me over to see his magic with machines.

"You haven't been in this room before, have you?" He asked the question in a clearly probing manner, bringing up one of his hands to gesture around the dark and cramped room. The illuminating blue light lit up half of his face while the other half was left in darkness, which I felt was oddly apt considering how ruthless he had shown himself at times, it all being so distracting I almost didn't answer him. My lie had been that I had been in there before because Connor had sent me to find some kind of instructions for him, so I nearly opened my mouth to answer that I had before he answered for me. "You haven't. You looked shocked when the door opened to this mess of a room, and even after my warning you still seemed to trip over the cables, which you would have known about if you had been in here at all before"

I felt like a kid that had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, an admittedly small thing to do in comparison to genocide or starting a war like our Alpha opponents did, but somehow you were still scared to admit to that parental figure that you had done it. Matthias could see the ashamed look in my eyes as I refused to look at his, tightly clenching my skirt as he slowly realised that I hadn't learned about the Alpha army that way.

"It's okay; you're not in trouble. I just really need to know how you learned about it, so that I know if there is something I _need_ to do" To my surprise, he didn't seem mad at all, instead seeming concerned for how else I could have learned about it. After all, in the worst case scenario, I could have learned about it by being kidnapped by an Alpha when I was younger and only just now having the courage to find others who believed me. I sighed softly, preparing to unravel my long built up lie with enough ambiguity so that Paul would still not get in trouble.

"After I nearly got kidnapped by Tadashi, the three guys who came to my rescue started to mumble things about something happening in eighteen years’ time. When I asked them about it, they told me it was something that they  _couldn't_ tell me about. When I asked Blaire about whether she experienced the same thing from others, she said she had" I recounted the first things that truly made me suspicious about the secret people were hiding, with Matthias slowly seemingly like he was understanding what made me jump down the rabbit hole in the first place. "Call me overly curious, but I had to know... So I kept asking around until I got an answer. They didn't tell me about who was going to be the opposing side in the war, but they did let me know the gravity of the situation"

"...Whoever that was, they did the right thing" Matthias surprised me again by not only saying that Paul's decision was right, but the pure fact that he didn't seem to think it was wrong for me to be curious about the thing they were hiding. "All you heard was that  _something_ was going on, but you likely didn't know about how dangerous it was to poke your nose around in the wrong places. By telling you about the danger levels but not what the danger was, you were able to learn that you had to be careful about you did, but not enough so that you gave anything away to some random Alpha you met on the street"

I let out a big sigh of relief with the realisation that I no longer had to be protecting Paul in that manner, as well as the fact that I could finally drop that matter and focus on the more important stuff such as actually getting our three companions back. Matthias, realising just now how much stress I must have gone through in realising this colossal task we had ahead of us, gently held me for a hug (partially to reassure me, but I had a feeling that a lot of the reassuring was being more focused towards him).

"I don't think I said it before, but it means the world to me that you, Katra and Blaire are willing to help us despite... Everything that's happened" Matthias softly sighed, finally showing a softer side of him that I just knew he had to have somewhere beneath his stressed exterior. When we pulled apart, it was clear it was the best time to be open about things, as there likely wouldn't be another time when he'd be so forgiving of mistakes and rule breaking. "So, is there anything else we need to discuss? Something you want to ask me instead of the other way around possibly, as I can imagine you have many questions"

"...I do have one thing to admit before I ask any questions" I made the possibly daring decision to be a bit more open than I would have been if he had been angry about the previous rule break, looking at him being just honestly curious about what this new thing was. "I am dating someone in the P.W.C."

This time I got a deep sigh instead of immediate approval, but I supposed it was to be expected from that one. In fact, sighing was still far better than being mad, so it was still a win in that regards.

"Dang it, I knew someone was going to break that rule sooner or later" He did seem to expect that it was going to happen someday, but he likely was hoping it would have taken much longer than a year or two for it to happen. "Well, I guess eighteen years is still a way off, and you guys are adults rather than a bunch of teens... I don't think you'd throw a tantrum with each other in case it didn't work out. Who is it?"

"...Paul" I still felt a little unsure about mentioning him by name, but the surprise on Matthias' face threw me enough that it seemed obvious that he wasn't expecting that answer. "What? Is something wrong with Paul?"

"No, nothing's wrong with him. I just honestly thought you would have been dating Bobby with how often you two worked with each other, and the fact you two flirted with each other when you first met each other" I immediately snorted in response to Matthias' insinuation that it was Bobby, mainly because the examples he was giving were tame in comparison to what I had actually gotten up to with the guys. "What?!"

I just laughed harder at his utter confusion, the both of us going around in that circle of him being confused which I found endlessly funny now that I had as much off my shoulders as I could in the moment. I eventually found my breath, and he found his composure, which meant that we could finally have a discussion that was more than me howling in a fit of laughter at his utter lack of picking up hints.

"Fine, fine, I suck majorly at noticing my employees are dating each other" Matthias threw his hands up in the air as he said that, and I very nearly blurted out that he truly was that bad, as he had completely missed his own brother dating his psychologist, not to mention the thing going on with his second-in-command and his undercover agent. "Is there anything else we want to talk about, or do you just want to laugh at me for another ten minutes?"

"There is actually something I was wondering about earlier when we were talking about the bithids and sithids with Marvin" I sobered up a little, even though there was a part of me that wanted to joke further about how I had been laughing for longer than just ten minutes. "At one point Kevin mentioned that he had nicked a piece of the suit the guard was wearing, which you didn't seem surprised at in the slightest. Matthias, be honest with me, did you tamper with the evidence?"

"I didn't, I can honestly promise you that from the bottom of my heart" Matthias reassured me that he wouldn't do anything so damning as that, which did make me a little bit more relieved. But... Somehow there was something in his words and eyes that seemed to say that he had something to admit as much as I had earlier. "All I did was fix the mistake the court made"

"...You what?" I didn't understand, my brain struggling to understand what he was referring to.

It couldn't have been that he bribed the judge or jury; there was no way that was going to fly under the radar of the court. The only things popping through my mind were the things that had seemed odd during the court trial, ranging from Gashin yelling at us about how we got free because of the jury being only compromised of Beta and Omega, the oddly exact sixteen people who sat on the side supporting the deceased, Bobby being insanely mad about court because of how his brother's killer got off free because of the people on the jury stand-

"...Oh my god" It finally hit home what Matthias had done, him grimacing slightly as he noticed me slot the pieces together in my mind. "You bribed someone to ensure that the jury was filled with nothing but Omega and Beta"

"I wasn't doing it intentionally to get Beta and Omega onto the stand, I was just making sure the original selected jury actually got onto that stand" Matthias did correct me slightly, as I did not quite have the full picture yet. Despite how antsy I was feeling about this news, I did my best to sit still and let him speak, finally learning the things he had done to make sure that our court case wouldn't end up like Bobby's brother's one had. "The people on that stand were the ones selected by the normal system, by random ballot. I had a bad feeling after Billy's trial that we'd have another case go wrong for us because of the stupid people on the jury, so I took a closer look by hacking into the court database"

"Which is also illegal" I felt I had to mention, which he sighed at.

"I know, but I just... I couldn't take losing another cousin, let alone the four of you because of the risk" Matthias admitted that in a just world what he had done was wrong, but... I supposed it wouldn't have been a just world. "But the kicker was that I actually was right, there was a sudden change after a suspiciously high amount of money came in for one of the security guards, with specific instructions on the sixteen people who were supposed to "replace" the jury that were supposed to be there. All I did was fiddle around with the instructions, giving the security guard the impression that all that Gashin wanted was to hurry the case along a little"

"That's it?" I made sure that he wasn't hiding anything further, and he firmly nodded his head, very confident in the fact that he had only done that and nothing more to ensure a better chance for our much deserved freedom. "...Thank you. I know I was berating you for breaking the law just now but that decision likely saved me from rotting in prison for a crime I never wanted to commit"

Before he could respond to my gratitude with a casual dismissal or a more serious response, a loud beeping noise sounded from his computer. I would have assumed it was something completely unimportant such as the computer being done burning the information onto the CD, if it wasn't for the fact that it sounded similar to something Paul had showed me in the past.

"Is that a GPS tracker?" I asked, inadvertently looking down at the little ladybug still on my left wrist.

"It is; I had given Connor two of them to incorporate into our weapons in case someone lost an important weapon on a mission" Matthias explained, tapping a couple of keys on the keyboard to bring up a screen. The first location it had locked onto was our exact location inside the company, so Matthias grumbled a little when he saw it. "Darn it, Jfred must have left the sledgehammer somewhere in this room underneath my cables"

Both I and he started to look around at some of the more built up piles of cables to see if we could spot a glint of metal shining from the sledgehammer, but nothing seemed to contain it. A vague memory in my mind replayed at that moment, reminding me that Connor had actually taken a sledgehammer with him on the mission to the Isles of Centica... And Paul hadn't found it along with all of the other weapons and the sword, so the chances of the weapons being stolen by the Alpha who had kidnapped the three was quite high.

"...I have an idea on what that GPS tracker is responding to" I gambled on a complete theory I had about what the machine was locating, carefully pulling out the one item that Connor had gifted me, the tiny metal duck he had carefully constructed. "I'm going to walk a bit down the hallway, tell me if it moves"

While purposefully balancing the duck on my open palm, I strode out of the office while leaving the door open to make it easier to hear Matthias if he called for me. Eventually the beeping noises on the computer started to dull as I got further away, making me wonder if my theory was actually correct... Surely it couldn't have been that he  _and_ Paul gave me a gift to keep me safe in case something had happened?

"It moved!" Matthias quickly called for me, which made me hurry back. After all, if it was responding to my duck, then there was the chance that the other one in the sledgehammer actually was working. "You're not carrying the sledgehammer on you though"

"No, it's responding to this" I showed him the metal duck, which at first he seemed to frown slightly at as he likely thought it was a waste of material despite how little it was. It definitely did serve the purpose that Connor had likely tried to get it to do, which was to respond to the GPS tracker and to look innocent enough so that others wouldn't pilfer it off me when I was incapacitated. "But that doesn't matter, what it does mean is that the trackers still work when in metal. You mentioned a tracker in a sledgehammer, and I know for certain that Connor had taken one with him when we went to the Isles"

"And Paul reported that he didn't find any of our weapons, so it's likely that they took them along with the guys!" Matthias clicked instantly onto what I was trying to insinuate, turning around rapidly in his chair and pressing a number of buttons to make the tracker become interested in other signals than the one I was holding in my hand. Almost immediately, the map shown on the screen zipped out of the city, heading to the South-East from our location, crossing over a portion of the Gafi desert before it hovered over what seemed to be a thick portion of trees in the Lomu forest.

"We've found them" I held a hand over my heart in relief, as the chances of them being okay were much higher because we had found them so quickly. Sure, there was the remote chance that it was just where they had taken the weapons and not the guys, but it was far better a lead than what we had before (which was nothing). "Hold on guys, we're coming"


	35. This means war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning; crude mentions of sex and likely referencing to assaulting someone sexually at the end of the chapter.  
> Please proceed with caution if these make you feel unpleasant in any manner at all.

As much as I had wanted to charge off the moment we had found the location of the guys (or at the very least, where the Alpha had taken their weapons), Matthias quickly shot that down by reminding everyone that we were nowhere near ready to assault their base with the six of us. I still couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if I had to save my life, both Kevin and Marvin had very little in terms of muscle, and we had absolutely no plan for who was going to take over for Paul or Tanner (arguably the most important members of our team) if one of them perished on the mission. As much as I hated it, we got back to training with a renewed vigor behind us to make sure that we were ready, with Matthias keeping an anxious eye on the tracker to make sure it didn't move in the meantime.

The first day, I could manage to hit the target correctly, but it took me far too long to reload and fire again for Paul and Tanner's comfort. Marvin and Kevin were pushed to their limits to improve their muscles as much as possible in the short time they were given, as well as taking the rest of that day of to recover. A simple plan was formed for Paul to take over for Tanner in case it was only the latter who perished, but nobody was willing to raise their hands to take over in case both of them died.

The second day, I was able to get the bullseye of the target and my speed improved, if only slightly. Marvin and Kevin were then taught proper carrying techniques by their brother and cousin, showing how to properly carry a person in the fireman's lift. After much deliberation, Marvin offered to take over for Paul in case of death, as would I take over for Tanner in case both he and Paul died.

The third, my speed improved greatly to the point that I actually broke Bryan's record for reloading (his was the slowest out of everyone, but still, I found it impressive). Marvin and Kevin finally got to use their newfound muscles and technique to lift someone, managing to do so quite well, but they found that it was still extremely difficult to move with them on their shoulders. From the previous day’s plans, Paul focused his entire efforts of flight training on me and Marvin (I was to take over for Marvin in case Tanner, Paul and he were to be... Well, you know) while Tanner began to teach me and Kevin advanced tactics of best places of breaching a building or when it was the best time to retreat.

By the fourth day we were sick and tired of waiting, putting all of our energy into a final push to finally be allowed to go.

My speed with reloading and aiming was reduced to be less than four seconds, which beat almost everyone's time in the company except for Jfred, Paul and Matthias, who held higher records than that, and with my aim proving to stay consistent enough to be reliable. I wasn't ever going to win awards, but it certainly was leagues better than my old training.

The two brothers, while they still couldn't run at a fast pace, could manage to carry someone decently well on their shoulders and walk at a steady pace. It immensely tired them out, but it would mean free hands for everyone else, which was exactly what we needed.

The plans were somewhat haphazard to anyone new coming in to the team, but we understood it perfectly. Tanner was ultimately the leader in the team, who would be followed by Paul, followed by me, then by Kevin, to Marvin until we reached our last member in Katra (who really didn't want to lead, as it of course would mean that she was the last surviving member). As for our pilot, Paul was the best and we really didn't have anyone else after Marvin and me, so we really had to make it count.

Finally, with everything said and done, we were ready to go.

I remember the day vividly, the way the banshee seemed to howl as it soared through the air over the city. At first we had the reassuring look of dusk washing over the buildings in the city, before the orange glow seemed to give way to the wide open desert. Like only a week or so before that day, I had flown in the very same banshee towards the Centica Isles, but now the air was thick with worry unlike the carefree one it had been on that other day. The three people sitting beside and across from me were not the same ones that had gone with me to the Isles, but that just spurred me on further to ensure that I would see their faces again.

"We're approaching the area where the GPS detected our sledgehammer" Paul announced that to us, which was essentially the news that we weren't allowed to talk for no reason beyond that point to reduce the chances of people picking up our voices. Not that we were talking much by that point, even the noises that might have come from me or Katra's heels were gone because she had provided us both with ballet shoes to dampen our noises. "Activating stealth cloak and silent engines"

I couldn't help it any longer, itching to get up and look out from the front of the banshee rather than linger in the back. Unclicking the harness that was keeping me secure in my seat, I tiptoed over behind Tanner and Paul, who were still looking out for any sign of a base.

"No sign of it yet" Tanner answered the question that was dancing on my lips, being gracious enough to not order me back to my seat as he and I knew that if it were to get rocky I'd dive back into my seat. Out the front of the ship, absolutely nothing was giving away that we were nearing a base, just forest being visible for miles around us. "...We're supposed to be right on top of them and still nothing"

"I'll swing back around and gently dip us below the trees, there might be some signs of an underground base" Paul wasn't giving up, heading away for a small bit before finding a gap big enough between the trees and slipping underneath the sea of foliage. Right as we dipped underneath the green, our answer was right in front of us, startling everyone in the ship by how obvious it stood out against the landscape once we weren't flying above them. "Holy crap..."

Paul's expletive seemed to be the same thing that everyone else was thinking, with him bringing the banshee gently to a halt and hovering in place. Forget underground, the base was right in front of us, and it was absolutely  _massive_. It looked taller and more intimidating than what our company building looked like, but frankly the most intimidating factor of all was two massive anti-air guns that swivelled slowly from side to side in what seemed to be an automatic scanning routine. Had we been on foot, or even just in a ship that didn't have a stealth cloak on it, we would have been blown to smithereens.

"I can't land the ship, otherwise we'll be shot down" Paul relayed the bad news to everyone, with the other three anxiously getting themselves out of their seats to have a better look at the most daunting assignment we had ever taken on. "The Banshee's cloak only activates if the engine is on, and there's no way I can find enough foliage on the ground to hide us"

"Damn it!" Tanner hissed, tapping the seat he was in to try and think of some kind of solution. There was always the option of turning tail and heading back home, but none of us truly wanted to do that. "I... Hold on, give me a minute..."

"We don't have a minute, the longer we stay in the air the more likely we'll be spotted" Paul wasn't nearly patient enough for Tanner's slow plan to come to fruition, which made sense as neither of them were a part of the class that did the thinking. Luckily for them of course, they had three different people who could possibly have thought of alternatives, and I happened to have one very quickly.

"There's no foliage on the ground, but there is just a little bit above us" I pointed up to the top layer of the trees we had just breached to even see the base, planning to use them to hide the ship while we went in and got our comrades back. They were used to conceal the base from us, so it felt like a perfect reversal to use them to kick the Alpha in those base exactly where it hurt. "If you hover high enough to hide behind them, we can drop a rope down the skinny part of the tree and climb down it. The ship will be perfectly hidden by the foliage, and the trunk all the way down will be enough to hide a person shimmying down as long as we're hiding behind it away from the base"

"We would need to hover the ship continuously for that to work" Tanner poked a hole in my logic, but like a perfect Omega duo Marvin came to my rescue and patched up that hole with another leap in logic that the Beta in our ship couldn't make like we could.

"Well, it's a good thing you have three potential pilots then" Marvin obviously gestured to himself with a finger to show who he was planning on leaving behind to take care of the ship, as there was no way that me or Paul could be left behind with the injectors full of bithids. "Besides, you know I hate heights, so I wouldn't want to go down that rope anyway"

Tanner looked unsure about the idea still, but his leadership was kind of lacking in the fact that he'd never truly have the guts to shoot down a plan we came up with... Especially when he had no better alternative himself. Paul had nothing better, so he didn't even wait for permission from our leader, shimmying the ship gently to the side and upwards so that we were hiding behind the foliage. Marvin gently took over the controls, and other than the occasional wobble that Paul's piloting didn't have, we were good to go.

Kevin went down first, insisting he had to 'let the couples go together' (with Tanner also sighing and remarking that it was a mistake to tell Kevin about our relationships), but I knew it was because he wanted to make sure that the rope didn't swing too far away from the tree and attract the attention of the anti-air gun. It didn't, and before long we had all slid down the rope with only some minor friction burns on our hands.

There was another problem in the form of the anti-air guns still swinging around, and we weren't too sure about if they would see us if we snuck around on the ground.

"I think I see an air vent large enough for one of us slender ladies to slip in and unlock a door for the burly men" Katra managed to just barely see the side of the building as she poked her head just a bit around the tree we were hiding behind, retreating the moment she thought she had poked out too far. Her specific choice of words had seemingly been funny to Kevin, as there was no way he was a 'burly man' but he was quickly shut up by a sharp jab to his ribs by Paul, who was not planning on getting fired on because his friend was too busy giggling. "What do you guys think, should I try and see if my talent works on these guns?"

"How about we try with something that's not alive first" Kevin wasn't too keen on the idea, as were the rest of us. Instead, he reached down and grabbed the biggest stick that he could find, and brought his hand far enough back to fling it high into the air towards the building. It sailed through the air just a bit higher than Tanner's head would be if he was walking directly upright, and it flew right into the middle of the clearing just in front of the building. Neither turret reacted at all to the stick, even though one was directly facing that way in its automatic movements.

"It's probably set to a less intense sensitivity than most systems, as otherwise it would be wasting a lot of ammo on rustling leaves and falling branches" I theorised, which meant the fact that the trees were once again inadvertently aiding us in our assault. When both turrets had swung away from us, I quickly crouched and padded my way between our current tree and another one nearby, which once again proved that they weren't going to fire on us. "If we sneak around between the trees like this, we can reach the side of the building and be out of reach of the turrets when we try to sneak into that air vent"

All four of the other members willingly followed my plan again, all five of us darting between trees the moment the turrets were faced away, with the only thing slowing us being Kevin who occasionally still looked behind him to see how his brother was faring in the air. So far nothing had gone wrong for him, Paul's flight training teaching both him and me about the most difficult part of flying, how to hover them in the air for long periods of time.

Another thing that did strike me as odd however was how much the leadership was falling by the wayside. Whether it was because I was the one coming up with the plans or simply because I was more firm with my choices than Tanner, it seemed less and less like it was the latter leading our group out of the two of us. Neither Paul nor Tanner had called me out for overstepping my boundaries, and it almost felt like I had already taken on leading the group despite the fact that both of them were still hale and hearty.

"So what's the plan now?" I decided that we needed to establish who was leading once we had safely gotten around the guns, being just one tree away from the side of the building. My question seemed to take the others a little by surprise, as they had been following behind me obediently that entire segment of the mission. "Tanner?"

"Oh, uh... Your plan sounds good for now" Tanner gave a noncommittal answer, which finally made the others realise how much he had been leaving to others. In most missions that he must have done, he only ever had to command people in the short term, not juggle plans and his team members at the same time, which was biting him in the rear with that mission where he really needed to both while under pressure.

"Tanner, Mila's the  _backup_ leader, not the main one" Paul pointedly reminded his teammate, as he hadn't taken over command himself because Tanner was still hale and hearty, but he now realised the way it was going to fall apart if someone didn't take charge. "If you think you can't lead, then you need to tell me right now. Because there is _no way_ I am losing this entire team, let alone my girlfriend who I love with all my heart, because you're not able to work this out"

I had to try my best to not let his words distract me too much - as much as I wanted to, he always seemed to know the right things to say - instead pinching the inside of my arm and sharply concentrating my attention on Tanner. I hadn't been on many missions with Tanner, but I could tell he was freaking out majorly by this point, as it was finally dawning on him how much our lives were dependent on how well he planned this... And as luck would have it, Tanner was a horrible planner.

"I-I can't- Holy... Holy hell, I can't-

"Take a couple of deep breaths and calm yourself down, we'll get this sorted out" Paul quickly stopped Tanner from hyperventilating by sharply squeezing the latter's shoulder, seeing quite clearly from the wide eyes and frantic breathing that Tanner would have to bow out early as our leader. "I'll be taking charge from here on in. So collect yourself, follow my orders and you'll be fine"

Tanner seemed endlessly relieved, much more used to having a position of a follower rather than a leader, quickly finding something to calm himself down in his mind.

"Come on love, I know you can do this" Katra did spend a couple of seconds to ensure that he was still up to task of following us in and actually using the injector properly, and she only needed to be with him for a short couple of seconds before he was up and running again.

"Mila, as much as I hate to admit it, planning is not my forte either" Paul's tone had taken on a snappy and sharp version, one he had likely adapted from his short stint in the military, but it was appropriately brought out in a time when it really was necessary. "I need your brain to be running twenty-four-seven for me, and when I ask you for an idea, I need you to have at least one"

"Yes sir" My brain accidentally flipped to an old habit I had whenever referring to the military people who would come to my father’s house for business, as they always expected some kind of respect to be shown to them which I was always more than happy to provide. Paul clearly didn't expect it, his shocked face proved that for a brief second, but then there was a short glimpse of a cheeky grin to end it. Kevin clearly thought the couple banter between me and Paul as well and Tanner and Katra was too sickening, as he quickly imitated throwing up into a nearby patch of grass. "I do have an idea right now on how to get in"

"Let's hear it then" Paul accepted it easily, pulling out his injector already in preparation as the others came closer to hear the plan.

"Katra and I should sneak closer to the vent with some sort of tool to take the grate off, as that way if someone comes out of the door right there, Katra will have an easier time of using her talent to slink away" I suggested the loose plan running through my plan, pointing to several parts of the building we were looking at. Not far away from the air vent was a set of double doors that seemed to be electronically locked, with a key-card being used to get inside which we didn't have, but it meant that there was the slight possibility of someone coming out at the wrong time. "After all, we want to keep the bithids for moments where we really can't do anything else"

"Let's do it" Paul liked the plan enough to sternly pat both a shoulder of mine and one of Katra's, quickly slipping a small tool from his belt into my hand before gesturing for me and her to go. "Take that Alfu army knife with you, it will help you remove the grate"

Both of us girls sneaked across the grass, keeping a wary eye out for any security cameras or otherwise that would give us away, before we reached the wall successfully.

"Come here darling, let's show those men how it's done" Katra quite easily made a cup out of her hands for one of my tiny feet to perch on, her easily lifting me up because of her vastly stronger Beta muscles being able to lift up my delicate form. All I had to do then was rest my other knee on her shoulder and I was the perfect height to reach the air vent, which oddly enough was a little bit low for a normal building now that I thought about it. "Good lord Mila, you weigh like a feather! You need to tell me your diet, it must be amazing!"

I had to do my best to not snort in laughter as I flicked open a screwdriver in the Alpha army knife I was given, before going to town on the grate. It was incredibly old; most of the metal being turned a strange reddish brown from rust, with the majority of the wear being on the screws. I only had to apply a small pressure to one particular head of a screw before the head came flying off like a projectile, tumbling harmlessly into the grass behind me.

"They really could benefit from some 'rust-be-gone'" I couldn't help making that snide remark as I removed the final screw, which made her titter a little bit underneath me. The fun came to an end when we heard a beeping noise from the door, which meant that my possible predicament of being interrupted was coming true. Not even bothering to warn her, as I could already feel her stiffen underneath my knee and foot, I flung the grate off of the wall into the grass with a soft thud in preparation for jumping in. She could already hear the soft noise of the grate hitting the grass, so she flung me up with as much force as she could muster in the moment, which was enough for me to crawl into the vent out of sight from whoever was coming out.

"Fucking hell, it's been a long day" I could tell it was an Alpha the moment I heard them speak, their rough gravelly voice and brutish vocabulary hitting you in the face long before you saw their grisly muscles. Vaguely in the background of his conversation could I hear the noise of Katra softly tiptoeing away, but no part of the Alpha's tone seemed to say that he had noticed her after her talent had activated. "Who would have thought that trying to get some shithead Beta to make weapons for you would be so annoying?"

...A Beta making weapons for them, likely against their will. I didn't want to get my hopes up too high, but it sounded quite close to a possible description of Connor.

"You think he's bad? Try the new toy the guys wanted in the theatre, always kicking everybody in the shins the moment you try to feed the bastard"

And yet another familiar description, as I could easily imagine Gunner doing that to someone. But as much as I could have lingered around near the entrance of that vent to try and hear about the third of the trio that were missing, I had to find a way to let the others in.

As I crawled forward through the admittedly dusty inside of the vent, I carefully made sure to shimmy forward like a snake would so that I wouldn't be a big warning bell for everyone in the base. At one point I even had to stop for a short bit to halt a sneeze that was coming on, as that would be far too embarrassing an end for my story. When I reached another grate that was directly over a room, I decided to take it, as it was still close enough to the door that it wouldn't have taken me too long to get the door open.

After popping off another rusty vent (they seriously needed that rust-be-gone), I dropped into what seemed to be a rudimentary supply closet, the ballet shoes that Katra lent me perfectly muffling the sound that I made when I landed on the floor. Good timing too, as the moment I had, I heard noises outside the closet door that seemed to be the same two Alpha that had just been outside passing by to their next destination.

"Where we headed now?" As much as it almost physically hurt me to hear them use such incorrect English, I still trained my ears on what they were saying, not just for where they were headed but also to hear more possibly useful information.

"I heard we're supposed to be going to the other base, where that shrimp is with his suits. Apparently he's been stuffing up the last couple of batches and they need someone to sort him out"

"Oh I'll sort him out alright; he'll be a lot better at making those suits after I spear him with my dick"

"That sounds fucking gay"

"It's not gay if I'm the one doing the penetrating"

"Whatever you say, faggot"

The rest of their conversation devolved into further fighting and calling each other various names that sounded close to a derogatory term for homosexual, but gradually they got far enough away that I was able to safely come out of the closet (a coincidence considering the things those guys were thinking about, I assure you) and peek down the hallway.

Unlike the long expansive hallways that belonged in our building, these hallways were super narrow, with only two people being able to comfortably walk side by side with each other down them. With such little space it felt a little dangerous to be there on their own, so I quickly darted down the hallway to my left towards the doors that they had used to get in and out. From what I could tell from the inside, a person didn't need a key-card to get out, so all I had to do was gently open the door (which still beeped at me despite my lack of proper authority) and wave the others to come in.

As the others darted over the grass it left me time to think over what those guys had actually said. Ignoring all the crude references they had made about sex, they had actually mentioned some concerning things, especially the idea that there was a second base existing somewhere out on Alfu. Not only the second base however, but someone who had been captured there who was building those frighteningly efficient suits that could increase the strength of the Alpha. It couldn't have been Bobby, as we knew that the suits had existed long before him being kidnapped... So who was it?

"Alright guys, we make this quick" Paul led us onward, completely unaware of the information I had just stored away in my head. It was a poor time to interrupt him to mention it, but it certainly meant that information about the location of that second base would be another thing we had to get in the base we were in. "Getting the guys is the main task, with weapons and information as secondary options. Let's go"


	36. War of Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning; Torture and descriptions of injuries from said torture.

Me and Paul continued to lead the group in our two man leadership, both literally and figuratively down those hallways. Because of our decision to assault the base late in the afternoon, a lot of the Alpha seemed to either be sleeping or getting drowsy enough that we had yet to encounter one of their patrolling guards. Even so, we still crouched low to the floor as we slinked over the floor, feeling much safer like that than charging upright.

Paul quickly gave us some hand signals that we recognised as him mentioning that we had a split in the road ahead of us, wanting to avoid talking as much as possible even though we hadn't seen an Alpha since the two people who had appeared at the side of the building. It was a perfect split down the hallway we were following, with one pathway heading in a North Westerly direction while the other went North East. Obviously we couldn't just take whichever, so it meant that our no talking rule had to be broken for a short while.

"Two different pathways... Considering how large this base looked to be from the outside, we could be spending a lot of time regardless of which one we go down" Paul sighed, knowing that we didn't have a lot of time to be dawdling around in the base. If we took too long then there was the worry that we would all manage to be kidnapped in addition to the three guys that were here. "We'll unfortunately have to pick one way and hope that all of our comrades are down that way. Which way do you think we should go down?"

"...Both. I think we should split up and head down each one" I decided after much deliberation, but I could tell immediately that the answer didn't sit well with everyone else when they all stared at me and waited for me to change my answer. They were likely hoping to hear not long afterwards that I was just kidding around with them or that I had not realised how brash my idea had sounded... They were even more concerned when they saw that I wasn't doing either of those things. "I know it sounds incredibly foolish, but think about it for a second. If we only find one of our comrades down these corridors, take them with us and leave, then we we try to come back later for the others it'll undoubtedly be a lot harder because the Alpha will know about us - and that's not even including the fact that our friends might not be alive the next time we come for them. We caught these Alpha with their pants down, and frankly I think that we need to be greedy enough to make sure they won't be getting back up for a while"

Paul listened to me give that entire list of why we had to do this now despite the danger hanging over our heads, him softly tapping the side of his chin as he mulled it over. I knew very well that Matthias had given him and Tanner instructions that we were supposed to be quickly in and out, grabbing one person and leaving unless they happened to be all together, but I knew my logic was sound.

"So, what do you think?" Tanner was clearly unsure about which one he would have followed had he still been in charge, which made Paul's eyebrows furrow as he realised that he was going to have no help from his comrade in deciding. Whether to follow the strict instructions that Matthias had given, or to follow with my ideas that were risky, he needed to decide quickly. Sure, my plans were not as safe as Matthias', but they were well worth the risk if we could pull it off. The only question that still remained was if Paul was a gambling man.

"Let's do it" Paul trusted in my logic, which made me endlessly relieved. The much scarier part came when Tanner pulled out his injector as well as Paul, before the both of them gestured for me to take mine out as well. I could see clearly what Paul was planning to do in terms of our group of five splitting up, especially when he and Tanner went to stand by the North-Western corridor. "Mila, you take Kevin and Katra with you down that way. If you find someone dangerous, take them out with the bithids and find one of our comrades. Once you have them, take them back to the Banshee, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it" I did my best to hide the jitters in my voice, as no matter how much I had been trained by Tanner, it was still a bit frightening the first time you led a team. "Be safe you two"

"We will" Tanner promised us, before the both of them ducked down their corridor. I knew that we couldn't really stand around and wait to hear if the both of them actually were going to be fine, instead I turned around and steeled my voice once again so that the other two wouldn't be worried about me leading them.

"Let's go" I led the way once again, this time with only two sets of footsteps following softly behind me. The moment we set foot down the North-Eastern corridor it started to curve around to our left, and we obediently followed. It was the moment we started to hear hurried footsteps ahead of us that I started to worry, as it almost seemed to be from someone who was coming around in our direction.

"It sounds like..." Kevin carefully strained his ears to listen to the amount of footsteps that weren't ours, quickly judging it so that I would have as much time to react as possible. "Two people, I think?"

"Two people?" I asked him for clarification, and Kevin nodded his head, as confident as he could be under the circumstances. A vague idea started to form in my head about who it could have been, especially with how much the corridor was now curving to our left. If their corridor did the same, only angling right rather than left, then there was the high chance that these two...

As I had partly predicted, the two people coming around the corner were Paul and Tanner, which meant that the two splitting corridors circled back around to meet each other before continuing on in the original direction that we had been going originally. In other words, it had been made to help against congestion during busy periods. But most of all, it felt like it had been specifically made just to mess with us.

"Oh, for pete's-

Paul cut himself short before he could begin to get even more upset to learn that our discussion had essentially been useless, but he seemed to be placating himself with the knowledge that we could be moving as a single unit once again. And even though my original thoughts had leaned that way, the earlier discussion was not completely useless; as we now knew that we wouldn't just stop at finding one of our friends, but strive on to find all of them... No matter if they had perished or not.

"Yay, we're together again!" Katra softly exclaimed, exaggerating her happiness just a little bit so that we would have some happy emotions fixing any annoyed ones. Even though it was obvious to me that she was playing it up a little more than usual, I was more than pleased with the fact that she was trying to lift the mood.

"I have to admit, I was missing your smarts already" Paul allowed himself one cheeky remark before it was back to business, with me gently slotting beside him and preparing to move onwards without missing a beat with each other. "We're going to listen in at that door before going through it, everyone watch each other's backs"

True to what Paul had said, there was a door on the left hand side of the corridor ahead of us, it being stark white with a single placard on it. From far away we couldn't really read what it said, so we quickly padded our way there intent on listening in. With Paul on one side and my on the other, we gently placed our ears against the wood to listen to the voices inside.

Whatever was going on inside, it wasn't people talking. Instead, there were sounds that reminded me a little bit of the time I had heard Tanner beating up his punching bag... Except this punching bag sounded off somehow. It didn't give the dull thuds that leather and a thick stuffing would, instead giving off a slapping noise like they were hitting something much softer.

"Uhh... Guys?" Tanner interrupted our listening, which initially we weren't too happy at, but we soon saw that he clearly was pointing at the placard that we had ignored in favour of pressing our ears to the door. In big bold letters, were the words 'Interrogation Room'.

"Gah!" With our ears still partially held to the door, me and Paul barely managed to pick up another sound in between some of the hits. It sounded like a grunt of pain from someone who was trying really hard not to give any reaction to what was being done to them. But frankly, the part that quickly caused me and Paul to frown was the fact that the voice was familiar to us.

"They sound distracted, so I'm going to open the door slightly to see if there's a way for us to sneak in" Paul warned us, which allowed Kevin and Tanner who were behind him to back up a little bit. The doorknob did make a slight jiggling noise once Paul actually turned it, but luckily the hinges were at least well taken care of because none of the rest of the movements made by Paul uttered a single noise. He had apparently chosen his timing perfectly, because almost instantly he opened the door further for us to slip in with a hurried whisper. "Go, go, they've got their backs turned. There's a lot of hiding places, find one"

I was the first one able to slip in because of my proximity to the door, quickly pattering over the floor while Paul kept watch with his injector in case one of the Alpha happened to turn around and spot me. The entire room was built quite spaciously compared to the storage closet, with several desks set up right in front of three separated cubicles that housed several different chairs. Over the top of those cubicles was a long pole from one end of the room to the other, which the Alpha seemed to use to handcuff their prisoners to while they interrogated them. In the middle cubicle was someone being routinely whacked by two Alpha, who seemed to take a morbid glee at the pain they caused to the person hung by their wrists off the ground.

The person they were hitting was Bobby. It was horrifying to see him there, especially because it had actually taken me a couple of seconds to even recognise him through the black eyes and dark purple bruises that seemed to cover him like some kind of infection. He was facing towards the door while the Alpha weren't, but it was impossible to tell if he had seen us. Even if he hadn't, it was also impossible to tell from afar if it was simply because he was heavily distracted or because he couldn't see behind the thick bags that were caused by the trauma around his face.

"Come on buddy, you don't need to make this so hard on yourself" One of the Alpha finally dared to speak to him once they gave him a small break, their backs still perfectly turned for everyone else to make it into the room without spooking them. I carefully placed myself near the edge of the cubicle those three were within, only a couple of steps away from them, before slowly flicking the safety off the injector in my hand. I had always been warned during my training with Tanner and Paul that I was to never take that safety off unless I planned to use the weapon in my hand, and I very definitely was going to use it then. "We just need some information about the people you work with, who it was who told you about us, you know? Just some little words and the beatings will stop"

The only noise or action Bobby gave in response was to inhale deeply and spit in the Alpha's eye. Likely because Bobby had also gained a bloody nose in the meantime, the wad of spit was streaked with blood, making a gory splatter on his captors face. Not all that surprisingly, the action infuriated the Alpha so much that his arm wound back obviously to strike Bobby in the face as some form of retaliation, but I wasn't going to have that at all.

Before he could land his shot I poked my arm around the cubicle wall and fired my vial into the back of the Alpha, who got momentarily stunned by the sudden pricking pain that sprung up in his back. A moment after I had fired mine, and while those two were distracted, another injector launched a needle into the leg of the other Alpha that had been unharmed.

"Ow! What the heck, what was that?" The Alpha who was going to punch Bobby in the face paused in his swing, grabbing around clumsily on his back to try and find the vial that was now lodged into his skin. His friend also noticed that something had been launched onto his leg, but by the time either of them reached anywhere near to the little chambers, the bithids were completely in their system. "I think a bee stuuuuuunn..."

Like our test on Jfred had gone, both Alpha quickly looked drowsy after the blue liquid disappeared into their bodies, not long after that they started slurring their words and slumping over in an unconscious state. With both of the dangers in the room completely handled, Paul gave some hand signals for Katra to keep watch over the door while the rest of us moved in to secure Bobby.

"If this is some kind of coup going on in your own stupid hierarchy, I don't care" Bobby still couldn't recognise who we were even as we stood up fully and stood around him, his line of thinking obviously going down the route that we were just another bunch of Alpha who hated the first two but were no different in attitude. Even something as simple as him talking seemed to take a lot of effort, as it meant he had to power through the bruises and likely broken ribs in his chest to do so. "I'd rather pick death than give you anything"

"Bobby, it's us" I spoke up as Tanner gently reached upwards and tried to get him down. Bobby's face scrunched up in confusion, seemingly trying to combine the extreme act of looking through the narrow slit that was his eyes and trying to understand how I could have gotten there... Especially because the last time he had seen me, I was about good as dead with my body about to succumb to poisoning.

"Mila? I don't understand, Mila should be dead... Am I hallucinating? How did you-

Tanner had proven a little  _too_ good at his task of unchaining Bobby from the pole, which caused his entire body weight to come crashing down. I managed to throw my arms out far enough to catch him before he slammed into the ground, but his entire weight was too much for my weak Omega muscles and I collapsed to the floor with him in my arms. Luckily I hadn't slammed on my back, just my rear, but I was still reeling from the sudden pain of contacting the floor so suddenly.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Tanner apologised profusely to both me and Bobby on the floor, confusing the poor half blind guy in my arms thoroughly on what had just happened. Bobby had landed with his face directly wedged into one of my shoulders, where he likely got a good smell of my familiar meringue scent. "Are you guys alright?"

"...Mila" Bobby finally recognised that it really was me there, with all of the things I was wearing or doing tipping him off that I wasn't some kind of horrid trick of his imagination. The black velvet jumper rubbing over his cheek, the familiar smell of who I was, topped off with my own voice and possibly even him being just barely able to see my black eye-shadow through his thick eyes once he strained his body to sit up and look at my face. "Oh thank the lord, you survived! I knew getting you that antidote was the right thing"

Me being alive wasn't the only new development he must have missed in the days he had been missing, as he was immediately overcome by emotions once he realised I hadn't died after he had been kidnapped, but I didn't get a chance to say anything to him before he gently pressed his lips to mine clearly in a romantic manner. Everyone else in the group had learned of my relationship with Paul by then, so they all looked over to him as he looked conflicted on how he was supposed to react to the scene in front of him. Looking torn between coming forward to tug him off me and hanging back, he seemed to decide on the latter because he seemed to remind himself that there was no way Bobby could have known about my exclusivity in the meantime.

"Yikes, that's going to be awkward in a couple of hours" Kevin cringed slightly at the tense air between the unaware Bobby and Paul, deciding to come forward and lift Bobby off the ground before it could get too awkward. "Come on buddy, we're getting you home"

"Wait, what's-OW!" Bobby let out a cry of pain once he was hauled onto Kevin's shoulders, as no matter how gently his cousin tried to do it it inevitably caused extreme pain to Bobby's sensitive ribcage. "What's happening?!"

"Shh, you're alright, Kevin's just carrying you out of the base" I calmed him down before he could get any louder, already forming an idea in my head on what would be the best plan to get them out alright. Bobby was making soft protests about how he knew his cousins, how he knew they were never able to lift a person, but Kevin was determined to prove him wrong that day. "Paul, what do you think of the idea that Katra accompanies Kevin to the door that we came in through, but she doesn't go through them and comes back to us once Kevin's safely out with Bobby?"

"Sounds good, we'll already have a bit of a buddy system while we press on" Paul seemed to approve of the plan, which meant that the two people mentioned in the plan already gritted their teeth (that was mainly Kevin, but I digress) and gently filed out of the room to head towards the Banshee still waiting for us. "Kevin, if we're not back within four hours, take Bobby, your brother and you home"

"Don't you _dare_ make me do that" Those words were the first ones in the entire mission that actually seemed to show how stressed out Kevin was with everything, as in all of the other times he had perfectly managed to hide it behind jokes in order to keep other's spirits up. With somewhat shaky legs, Kevin started to walk at a decent pace out of the open door that Katra opened up for him. "Jeez Bobby, you really could stand to lose some weight"

The most we could hear Bobby say in response to that was a grunt of pain when Kevin accidentally hurt him with his footsteps, the both of them filing out of the interrogation room towards freedom.

"I second that notion, you guys better still be here when I come find you again" Katra also let us know that before she went after Kevin, her eyes mainly directed to all three of us, but it was clear that her eyes glanced slightly over to Tanner at one point. With us giving her as confident a nod as we could under the circumstances, she quickly went after the two people I had made her responsible for.

"...You okay Paul?" Tanner quickly checked in with our main group leader as he patted down the unconscious forms of the Alpha, looking for anything important (he didn't find anything really important, but he did snatch the vials back so that the Alpha wouldn't be tipped off from anything we were doing). Contrary to what Tanner had seemingly thought, Paul was not as bitter about the interaction as people had expected him to be, him quickly shedding that off his shoulders when he realised that there really wasn't much he could do about it now.

"Of course, we have more important things to worry about right now. Besides, it's not like Mila's wearing a glowing sign that says 'Paul's girlfriend'" Paul phrased the latter half of his sentence as a joke, but it clearly was too soon for that kind of joke for Tanner, who softly mumbled about how 'she might as well with how she acts around you'. Even though me and Tanner had four days to get over the breakup, and he also had Katra there, it seemed as if his heart was not quite ready to consider that wound completely healed just yet. "You two ready to move on?"

"I'm more than ready" I sternly told the both of them, eager to shoot more irritating Alpha to get to our friends as I reloaded the vial in my injector. "I'm kind of hoping that Gashin's in here so that I can shoot a needle into his smug face like he tried to do to me"

"Rescuing friends first, revenge second" Paul reminded me as he reloaded his own vial after I did, which gave away that he had been the other person to open fire after I had. "Besides, if he is in here you'll have to wait in line after I rearrange his face"

"God, get a room you two" Tanner sighed as he uttered that sentence, there being just a tinge of bitterness in his voice as he said it. It was almost like he was  _actually_ telling us to keep our romantic interactions behind closed doors, likely reminding him that I hadn't chosen him. I didn't care, Tanner was a grown man and he could get over it in his own time. "...Sorry, that was uncalled for"

"It's fine" Paul was extremely forgiving of both him and Bobby, not willing to destroy their friendships over something like that... Which was exactly what he had made everyone promise when I had first started to date all of them. And if Tanner's sheepish look on his face was saying anything, he was just now remembering that the rule still applied even after he wasn't competing for my affections anymore. "Let's go, we've got more friends to save"


	37. We don't have to dance

Five minutes after we were underway, Katra came back to us with the good news that Kevin and Bobby had made it out of the base successfully. The bad news we had encountered in her absence was the fact that we had found no other sign of our comrades beyond that one room that held Bobby.

"Why on Alfu is this base so badly setup?" Tanner softly grumbled once we we have been walking down that singular hallway for the next couple of minutes. "They don't make use of the size to make several rooms, just making one long hallway with some random rooms attached to it!"

"There's a worse problem with that idea" I reminded them, as we had still yet to notice any further troops than the four we had encountered. If Tanner's idea of the base being poorly optimised was true, then that meant... "If they have only rooms attached to this main hallway, then there's a good chance that one of these rooms will house the main sleeping quarters for their army"

"Where everyone is sleeping at this moment" Paul aptly picked up on what I was suggesting, looking unsettled by the idea of opening a door only to find all of our opponents about to swarm us. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have much time to discuss further plans on where we were going to call it quits and head for the exit, as I could hear the vague sounds of footsteps ahead of us. While the last time it turned out to be something innocent like Paul and Tanner coming around the corner, that option was no longer viable because all of our team was either by the Banshee or present at the time. "Oh shoot! Enemies incoming, hide in one of the two rooms coming up!"

We sped up momentarily to be able to reach those two doors before our enemies could see us, coming up to two doors directly across from each other. I made the split decision to dive through the one on my left, and I noticed I was the only one as everyone else had made the choice to dive to their right. It was too late to change our minds however, as the voices of the Alpha were loud enough that we couldn't switch sides without being noticed.

I just barely managed to make it into the darker room on our left when I heard the footsteps grow louder outside the door... Before eventually passing by my closed door. Even though they had left me and the others on the other side of the hallway alone, I wasn't too keen on charging back out without waiting a little in case there were more of their friends just a minute behind them, so instead I pressed my ear to the cool feel of the glass window to listen for anyone else I had to be wary of.

"Who are you?" I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone spoke up behind me, making me whirl around to notice a girl standing there, looking just as surprised as I was to see her. She wore some kind of old Asian attire, one that belonged to the... Japanese, I believe they were called. It was a long fabric dress that seemed to be neatly tucked closed with a sash around her waist, with the only other item of clothing that she wore being wooden sandals on her feet. More concerning than the lack of clothing on her was the fact that she was wearing chains on her ankles which kept them bound close together, giving away that she was a prisoner rather than a willing participant of this war. "...You look familiar somehow"

That comment of hers caused me to look her in the eyes, taking a more discerning look over who she was. Her face did seem to have similar elements of Asian heritage like Bobby's did, but the thing that drew me more was the long black hair that flowing down straight to the middle of her back.

"You were one of the members of the jury at my trial!" I suddenly remembered her with a flick of a switch, and it seemed as if my specific memory of her reminded her of how she had recognised me. Not only had she been on the jury, she was the one who had announced the results of the trial out to everyone in the courtroom.

"That's right, you were the girl who was being prosecuted by the Alpha family because some sleazy Alpha liked you! Of course, you weren't wearing make-up back then, so you do look slightly different with it on" She explained her slight difficulty with remembering who I was, but I honestly wasn't too worried about it. She did her best to gently shuffle her way to me to have a better look at me, but after tripping over her wooden sandals and her ankle chains she stopped and grumbled as she fixed the both of them. "Honestly, just because my parents are Asian doesn't mean that I know how to wear geta. These Alpha are more racist than they appear"

"What are you doing here? I mean, I can obviously figure out that you're not here of your own volition, but why would they kidnap you?" I made the decision to move closer to her rather than force her to make her way over to me, and it was then that I realised how much the small room was akin to a changing room. Various chests and barrels full of costumes seemed to adorn the room, and I even had to be careful to not bang into a costume or feather boa that hung from the roof.

"I got ambushed about a day after I left the court, but I didn't figure out why they had done it until I had been thrown into the group of fellow jury members. Turns out, they really weren't happy that we had ruled you guys as not guilty, and they were intent on making our lives miserable for it. I don't know what happened to the other fifteen, they all got taken away in the last week or so, but they've kept me here because they think it’s funny to dress me up in Asian clothing and dance for them" She grumbled as she remembered the reason for why she had been sought out, and it must have been obvious on my face that I was feeling apologetic for putting her in that situation because she waved away any idea that I was to blame. "Don't worry, you couldn't have known they would be a bunch of sore losers"

"Still, I'm sorry they decided to take you, miss.... Uh, I'm sorry, but what's your name?"

"Mayu Kurone" Mayu giggled a little at our late introduction to each other, possibly also because of the admittedly Asian sounding name that she also had. Asian appearance, Asian name, just not quite good at the clothing quite yet. "I can cut you a deal in case you weren't planning on helping me escape. I'm often tasked to dance alongside your friend, Gunner. Freeing him should be a piece of cake if you have me with you"

"Well, I actually was planning on helping you out even if you didn't know where he was, but knowing where he is would be a lovely bonus" I was a bit shocked to hear that she thought she would have to bargain with me for her freedom, already beating her to the punch by gently leaning down and seeing if I could get her chains unlocked so that she could properly walk out. "Oh, that's actually kind of complicated looking... Hold on, maybe if I-

"Are you finally ready in there?!" I got frightened for the second time that day when someone proceeded to shout very loudly through the glass door, banging on the door angrily to indicate how impatient they were by that time. The glass on the door was frosted, so luckily they couldn't just peek through that and spot me in there, but opening the door would quite quickly reveal me there with her. "Come on, hurry up! The tap dancing fairy has been ready for over ten minutes already!"

"Just give me a second! It's hard to tie a yukata sash on my own!" Mayu angrily bit back at them despite the Alpha's potentially lethal strength, struggling to move quickly backwards while dragging me with her. Both I and she could tell that her excuse would only keep them out for so long, so she quickly dragged me over to one of the big chests filled with costumes and proceeded to stuff me into it. "Keep quiet; they won't see you in here"

I was admittedly quite petite, so it wasn't that difficult for me to bundle up in the chest, hiding underneath several feather boas and what seemed to be a pirate costume before the door burst open. The Alpha didn't even make a remark about how she already looked perfectly dressed in her outfit before it sounded like he dragged her out of the room, the sounds of her clacking wooden shoes struggling to keep her upright as he stormed off with her. Only after a minute of no noise did I dare climb out of the chest, huffing a stray feather that had come loose away from my forehead before I tiptoed over to the door that had still been left open.

At the same time Paul, Tanner and Katra came carefully out of their own room across from the changing room. I was just about to open my mouth and report what I had found before Paul hurriedly (but quietly) hushed me with a single finger pressed to my lips. It was only when Katra closed their door behind them that they dared to whisper on what they had found.

"That room was the sleeping quarters" Paul told me very softly, still obviously on edge with the worry that if he spoke too loud that he would wake them all up, like some kind of sleeping hive. "We're very lucky that they happen to be deep sleepers, but let's still keep it down"

"The girl taken that way from my room, Mayu, knows where Gunner is" I lowered my volume to the same decibel as Paul's had been, before gently pointing ahead of us, where we had been heading before having to hide away. Paul nodded his head, before gesturing for the three of us to follow behind him as he led us onward. "She was on the jury that deemed me, Bobby, Gunner and Connor not guilty"

Paul's stoic face shifted slightly to frown at this news, as it clearly meant that things were already getting much worse for the common population of Alfu around the army. While before the army clearly had to pick and choose their battles, it now seemed to be whoever that annoyed them who would be kidnapped and completely forgotten by the rest of society. Even something as simple as their personal opinion, the outcome of the trial, could lead them into hot water... And we still had eighteen years before they would launch their assault on Pandora.

Unlike the doors at the sides of hallways like we had before, we had a set of double doors in the middle of the hallway leading forward. The glass in these doors wasn't frosted like the one for the changing rooms, so Katra made the smart decision for her to be the one to peek through them while she was using her talent.

"It's like some kind of theatre... But there's so many Alpha sitting in the seats looking at the stage, blech" Katra imitated feeling grossed out with the amount of Alpha hanging about in the room, but her description was enough for the rest of us to be able to tell that we wouldn't be spotted if we also came along to look. "Ooh, I see Gunner!"

True enough, one of the two people on the stage was a familiar looking person with slicked back black hair and impressive leg muscles from the times he had danced. He was dancing a little oddly, kind of stunted compared to the majesty that we knew he could pull off, but it was obvious that he couldn't do his best once we saw the chains around his ankles just like Mayu had on. The other person dancing was Mayu herself, but her chains were also in their way. The two of them were the only ones who faced towards the door, so I felt it was the best time to sneak in while still remaining low to the ground.

None of the twelve or so Alpha turned our way, assuming we were just more of their comrades coming to watch the show. Gunner and Mayu noticed us quite clearly, but the both of them had the sense to not suddenly stop dancing or act odd in any way. In fact, the only different thing that happened was the fact that Mayu's dance started to change.

What was before a gentle swaying motion with her arms in different directions became long sweeping motions towards something just at the back of the stage, a strange lever that looked like it led to some kind of electrical system, and not long after she noticed me looking at the lever she made a gesture with her hands that reminded me of flickering lights. If I was getting her signals correctly, she was hinting that the lever back there controlled the lights in the room, and that switching it off would equal the room being plunged into sudden darkness.

"Stop dancing weirdly!" The Alpha were starting to notice that she was acting a bit oddly, but Mayu being the rebellious person that she had proved herself to be, she didn't stop doing the movements. In fact, she seemed to be repeating them just in case I hadn't gotten it the first time around and also likely to distract the Alpha completely from anything I might have tried to do. "I'm serious, cut it out! Tap dancer, hit her or something!"

"I don't hit women" Gunner refused to do what they asked of him with a scowl on his face, not only because of his own moral compass but also because he could see quite clearly that he would be safe if he managed to help us. True to what he and I had likely expected from the Alpha, they grew very irritated and started to shout obscenities at them, at the worst even beginning to throw objects at them in the form of bowls of food and drinks... Which Mayu and Gunner were easily able to dodge.

The small hissy fit that those collective Alpha were throwing meant that the four of us at the back could easily get away with talking with each other without running the risk of being heard, so I held tight onto my injector when I asked Tanner something that I knew he was likely going to protest against.

"Tanner, throw me onto the stage!"

"Wha-

"Do it" Paul ordered his fellow comrade to do it, obviously trusting that I wasn't asking him for a random reason. So far all of my requests had been because I had a plan or some kind of solution to a problem we were facing, and he trusted that they were sound in logic. "Anything else we should do?"

"Keep one of your eyes covered until the lights go out, then cover the eye that was in the light; it'll help you see in the dark. Other than that, aim well" I gave what I considered to be the best way to overcome our soon to be disability in the fight, before steeling myself to be thrown over the heads of those rowdy Alpha. "Alright Tanner, I'm ready"

Tanner by that point had decided to trust in my judgement as well, as much as he didn't know exactly what I was planning, picking me up and spinning around slightly before flinging me as much as he could. He was by far the strongest in our group, and this got proven when I sailed cleanly through the air over the surprised group of sitting Alpha... But he was not quite proficient with throwing someone across a substantial room, as I landed with a bit of a thud in the centre of the stage rather than at the back.

"Oof!" I involuntarily let out a gasp as I landed in a bit of a heap in between Gunner and Mayu, who both looked at me with startled expressions like they hadn't expected me to do that. There was a split second where I still had some time to react before the Alpha figured out that I wasn't one of their comrades, which I took greedily by covering one of my eyes with my hand before storming over to the lever at the back of the stage.

"Hey! Someone stop-

Whoever had sounded the verbal alarm out of those twelve got cut off the moment I grabbed onto the lever and heaved, the entire room going pitch black with a loud whirring noise from the generators cutting out. Absolute chaos broke out once they realised that they well and truly couldn't see, and I could see it clearly once I shifted my hand from my eye to the other, showing the carnage that was unfolding.

Many of the Alpha were trying to scramble over their fellow class, which caused some particularly claustrophobic ones to lash out at the ones who threatened their personal space. Tanner made it worse by sneaking around some of the seats to punch one of them in the side of the head, before ducking away so that the subsequent fury from that one Alpha was directed at his neighbour instead of the actual culprit. Paul was also hard at work, using his good eye to take out one or two Alpha with his injector if they wandered too far away from the main infighting. Katra was bashing one particular unlucky fellow with a chair she had found and decided to use as a weapon, but my attention was more focused on two Alpha who had managed to break away from their infighting to come up the stairs to the stage.

"Come with me for a second" I softly requested of both Gunner and Mayu, before gently pulling on their clothing to direct them backwards towards the curtains and back of the stage. Because both of the stairs were located near the front of the stage, it meant that once those two threats had properly gotten up, they had both charged forward and found each other rather than the three of us who backpedalled out of their way. Likely thinking that the person they had grabbed was me (or who knows, perhaps they had thought it was either Gunner or Mayu), they started to beat the ever-loving stuffing out of each other.

All of these catastrophically presumptions made by the blinded Alpha, in all reality we had only use about four vials to take care of the ones who remained (or strayed to far, in Paul's case). By the time everyone had gotten fully acclimatized to the dark room, every single enemy was out for the count.

"Turns the lights back on Mila, we want to give the impression that nothing's changed in this base" Paul finally gave me the all clear to turn the lights back on, which I did quite happily. After the rest of us blinked for a couple of seconds to get used to the sudden return of the light, we knew that we had to act, because leaving behind twelve unconscious bodies of Alpha was likely going to tip anybody off. "Tanner, do you think you'd be able to hide them behind the curtains on the stage?"

"It might take me a while, but sure" Tanner already got to work by picking up the nearest Alpha to him, grunting slightly with the effort it took. It was likely much harder than throwing me had been, as these Alpha looked big and bulky enough to be three times my weight.

"Okay, now let's see about these chains of yours" Paul waved me over to come look at the chains that were still tightly wrapped around the prisoners ankles, but I could already beat him to the punch before we could stare at them for too long.

"They're not going to come off easily, we'd need someone with the strength of an Alpha to break them without the key" I broke the bad news to him, looking around at the various unconscious forms to see if I could spot any obvious glint of silver or grey to indicate a key. No such luck, there was no obvious key dangling out of a pocket, and I wasn't really keen on rummaging around in the bulges of their pants.

"We sadly don't have the time to check out each one of them" Paul decided to favour speed over comfort for his companions, gently patting Katra's shoulder to show that it was her time to shine. "Katra, I'm going to have to ask you to guide them out despite them having the chains still on"

"I can do that no problem!" Katra cheerily plastered a smile onto her face to reassure the two she was going to escort out, as they likely didn’t like the sound of what we were mentioning between each other. "Am I turning back around once they're out to come help you guys again?"

"...I don't think that's a wise idea" I decided that we were too far into the base to keep doing the back and forth like we had done for Bobby, which Paul seemed to agree with by gently humming an affirmative note. "We only need to find Connor after all, and Gunner and Mayu will likely need the same amount of help that Bobby did to get onto the Banshee. How do you two feel about climbing a rope up a couple of metres to get onto a hovering ship?"

"Honestly, my feet are killing me" Gunner gently shifted one of the cuffs of his restraints to show how bruised his legs had gotten from wearing them for such a long amount of time, which gave a pretty good indication that it was going to be a bit harder than it would for someone else. "But honestly, if you can manage to come back from the dead after being poisoned, then I can climb a rope"

He accentuated that remark by gently hugging me, being careful to not trip me with the cuffs he still was wearing but still wanting to convey that he was immensely happy to see that I had survived my ordeal. I returned the hug with a gentle squeeze around his chest to show that I felt the same to see him relatively unharmed after his kidnapping.

"You'll see me very soon, I promise" I made sure that he knew that before I let him go, before giving Katra a firm nod of my head. "Keep them safe"

"Aye aye boss!" Katra winked at me mischievously after I said that, confusing Gunner for a second as he had always known Matthias and Tanner to be the ones to lead our groups. I supposed it was a bit odd how much I was giving out orders compared to Paul, let alone Tanner, but I wasn't sure if that automatically made me the leader. "Let's go my pretty's, freedom awaits!"

"Me and Mila will be moving on, come join as as soon as you can" Paul gave the next set of orders once the three new escapees were making their way out, and Tanner grunted an answer once he got the third Alpha onto the stage and behind the curtains. "Let's go Mila, just one more to go"

I was planning on being much greedier than just getting Connor with us, as there was no way I was leaving without attempting to figuratively kick the army in their nether regions. But until I found something to really mess with or steal from them, getting our guys back was certainly a good start.


	38. Edge of a Revolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings; Basic Swearing

Moving onward with just me and Paul was eerie to me, as it finally hit home that we truly were in the belly of the beast now that we had lost around half of our original team coming in. Tanner did come along not long later, but that feeling didn't seem to escape me.

"Ah, we've got another split up ahead" Tanner softly announced the two separate double doors down a fork in the hallway, reminiscent of the same one we had run into before rescuing Bobby. It seemed that I wasn't the only one that was reminded of that part, as Tanner sighed before grumbling the following words. "Here's hoping it's not just another way that leads to the same hallway again"

"Not likely, as these seem to be leading into two different rooms" Paul disagreed with the chance that it was going to be the same as the other, but that might have been wishful thinking on his part. He pointed Tanner towards the doors on our left and mimed for me to follow behind him to the doors on the right, which gave away that he wanted us to check through the door's windows before we moved on. "What do you guys see?"

"The room actually is bigger on the inside than it seems. It's... I think there's some kind of massive meeting room in here, a double floor meeting room rather than a single floor" Tanner explained what he could see inside of his room while I stood on my tiptoes to see better through my door, but I could tell that our rooms were far different. But by far, my room was the more likely one to contain our friend simply because of the most obvious objects present in it. "There are a couple of Alpha in here using some kind of holovision screen, but it's currently being used for some kind of game. What about you Mila?"

"My room is a giant forge" I put simply, which gave away to the other two that Connor was most likely in my room, if the Alpha had any sense about them. While the Alpha certainly weren't the brightest tools in the shed, they certainly weren't brain dead, so both Tanner and Paul gave each other a look that signified that we were going into that room. "This place also seems to have a second floor, but the way we get down to the ground below us is by a lot of metal walkways and stairs. Be careful, I can't actually see if there are Alpha in here"

The door opened with a slight creak, but it was nowhere near as loud or intense as the room was the moment we came in. Like the forge Connor held at our own base, the room was swelteringly hot, as though he was in a constant state of tempering in this room rather than the temporary tempering like he did with us. The room was horrifying to behold, with pitch black walkways surrounded with rusted railings dotting the entire area as well as relatively useless menacing hooks that swung on chains for seemingly no other reason than to terrify the people inside it. There even was a massive square metal construct that hung at the side of the main walkway we entered in on, connected on hooks from the ceiling at such as height that it perhaps was used to hold materials out of the way of the people who generally would work in that room.

Below us, down several walkways was Connor, who was absentmindedly banging away on a piece of metal he was holding firm in between a pair of tongs. He likely hadn't heard us over the sound of his own hammer slamming into the metal, so it was understandable that he hadn't noticed us hovering ahead.

"Connor, we're-

A door opening on the ground floor sent the three of us in a bit of a panic, as there really weren't many places to hide. I managed to get the idea of hiding on the square metal piece, as it was wide and lengthy enough to hide us from anyone below, so I carefully climbed onto it in the hopes that the other two would follow me. They did, and I was even quite pleased to find that it was sturdy enough to not even wobble or groan that much under our extra weight, and we were well out of the way by the point the new strangers entered the room.

"We should be fine to peek at them from above, most guards never look directly up or down" Paul whispered to the two of us, which then urged me and Tanner to copy him in slightly peeking around the side of the square to look down at the people below. Connor didn't seem all that worried about the two people coming in, possibly because he was as unconcerned with how dangerous these Alpha were like Mayu was, or possibly even because he had managed to make friends with some of the more sympathetic ones. Who knew, perhaps it was both?

"Hey Connor, it's us again" A girl spoke up out of the two, the first sign that she likely wasn't an Alpha as I knew that female Alpha were considered quite rare at the time. She was built more as a Beta as well, with less bulging muscles and tall stature, and more in a firm hourglass figure that went well with her long blonde hair. Right behind her was a guy with medium length brown hair, looking more like the stereotypical Alpha due to his broad shoulders and tall height, but like her he had a gentle smile on his face which set him apart from his other class type. "We got an anti-inflammatory cream for you today, it might help your hands a little bit"

"You're going to get in trouble if you keep helping me like this" Connor seemed to remind them that the other people in the base likely would frown upon what they were doing, but they both waved it away as not that big of a problem. Even though he had reminded them of that, and he had genuinely seemed like he didn't care for Alpha or the people who worked with the army, but with the soft smile on his face did seem to say that he was relieved to see them. "Why are you guys even here if you're such... Good people?"

"Exactly for reasons like this, to help out those that my stupid old friends would try to hurt" The guy said, obviously deeply regretful that many of his old friends had gone down such a dark path compared to him, but it at least gave some hope towards some Alpha not wanting the oncoming war. "Once we have some kind of way to get you out of here, then we'll do that and get you and the other prisoners out"

"Good luck with that, I'm in one of the rooms the farthest away from the doors. Getting me out along with the others will be about as difficult as-

Connor got interrupted in whatever he was trying to say by the doors on the ground floor once again being opened and new people entering the room. However, rather than it being calmly opened like the girl and guy had done, this one was thrown open in aggressive manner like most Alpha were well known for. Unsurprisingly, the single person that came through seemed to be the typical Alpha that we had always encountered.

"Malaki! Why is your sister here again, you know I hate working with Beta!" The new Alpha attending shouted at the guy who had come in before him, so it gave away the two of them were actually not only friends, but siblings of each other. Before Malaki could even open his mouth and answer, it seemed to be far too long for the impatient Alpha as he cut him off before a single word could be pronounced. "Never mind, just stay out of the way!"

Malaki and his sister did seem to be able to tell that their irritable "friend" was not going to react well to defiance, so they took a step back and seemingly hoped that things would simmer down shortly. The sister even hid the little jar of cream behind her back in order to not get into trouble further, as she had likely pilfered it without asking for permission.

"You! Why are your weapons utter shit?!" The Alpha was clearly upset with Connor, even going so far as to pick up the piece of metal he had been tempering before slamming it down harshly onto the anvil. Giving away how fragile he had actually made it, the piece of metal easily shattered into multiple pieces like it was fragile glass rather than metal. This was likely Connor's attempt to  "Even this one can't be used! I thought you said that your talent was forging?"

"You're just swinging it too hard" Connor was clearly fibbing, as I had seen Jfred and Bryan manage to use his weapons in the past, and even the claws on my glove were nowhere near as fragile as what we had just witnessed. I had a feeling that something was going to go wrong the moment Connor said that, so I carefully prepared my injector and aimed it between the gaps of the walkways towards the Alpha, with Paul and Tanner both being prepared in case I missed my own shot. "If you swing it with the blade rather than the flat side, I'm sure you-

"Shut up! Your pieces are trash, and I'm sick of it!" The Alpha predictably lost his temper and began to handle Connor roughly, grabbing the smaller Beta by his shirt and lifting him off the ground in a fit of rage. The sister grew immensely worried about Connor, even looking like she was considering throwing the jar of cream at the Alpha's head and employing her brother to fight said Alpha, but Malaki seemed hesitant in the worry that Connor would be hurt before he could get to him. Luckily for our old friend however, the Alpha was facing in such a way that lifting Connor up did not impact my aim, so things were going to be fine. "If you're not going to make something proper for us, then you might as well be sent to our base with the massive brothel! Though whoever would want to fuck you is-

A single vial was launched from my injector before he could finish his tirade, which made him let out a pain filled cry before dropping Connor in favour for grabbing the back of his neck where the injector had landed. Connor luckily didn't land all that harshly like Bobby had, instead accidentally banging into the anvil but not much else. This particular Alpha made the mistake of trying to rip out the injector sideways, which did tear his skin a little and make the back of his neck bleed, but by the time he had managed to snatch the thing out of his skin the bithids had already disappeared into his system.

"What the fuuuuuuuuuuu..." The Alpha seemed confused on what he had gotten out of his neck, but he didn't have long to decipher what he had found before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he thudded onto the floor. I would have felt bad about potentially damaging his face, but... Actually, no, I wasn't sorry at all.

"Don't scream, we're here to help" Paul announced that we were there before one of them could think we were there to harm them, with Connor immediately recognising who we were once we clambered off the metal square. Most notable out of the three of us, he seemed to fixate on me, likely for the same reason that his two other fellow kidnapped friends had experienced when they had seen me again.

"Mila, you're alive?" Connor asked me in disbelief, with my answer coming quite simply with me quickly descending down the walkways until I could throw my arms around him. He couldn't exactly twirl me around in pure glee now that he had physical proof that I was fine, the single chain attaching him to the anvil proved that he would likely just trip or bruise his ankle if he did that, but the pure unadultered joy in his laugh was palpable to anyone in the room. "Jesus, I'm so glad to see you"

"Me too" I returned the same sentiment by gently patting the back of his head, feeling that his short dirty blonde hair had grown slightly in his absence. The younger sister (at least I assumed she was younger, as he did look taller and slightly older than her) seemed really happy to see that we were friends of him, and even more pleased to see that we cared enough about each other to save each other’s lives. "Malaki, right? And you are?"

"I'm Amanda" She acknowledged her own name after her brother nodded his head to indicate that the earlier name was his, and I nearly giggled as it reminded me of Matthias' wife's name. It appeared that she and her brother knew more about our group of friends in their base, which her following words inadvertently explained that she knew about them. "I'm impressed that you guys made it this far in. Did you already managed to free your other friends?"

"Yeah, we managed to get everyone else. It was actually a lot easier than it looks, because everyone is either sleeping or relaxing in this late part of the day" Tanner explained, obviously under the impression like with Mayu that we were going to be taking the two siblings with us after their admission to Connor (especially because they had said so honestly, they hadn't heard that we were there after all) and simply because of how kind they had been to him. Paul and I weren't going to protest against it, as unlike Matthias, we were not keen on keeping the lid on our movement any longer if someone was willing to offer their help. Once Tanner leaned down to inspect the single cuff on Connor's right ankle, he was disappointed to find that it was exactly like the ones that Gunner and Mayu had been wearing. "Dang it... There wouldn't happen to be bolt cutters in this room, would there?"

"They didn't really allow me near their already built weapons" Connor gave away that the answer that question was a no, which made a momentary block come into our plan. It wasn't like we could carry the anvil and him easily along with us like Kevin had carried Bobby, so we clearly needed another plan. "Malaki, do you think you could get this?"

"Absolutely!" The newly acquired Alpha in our team proved to be an excellent addition to our team, as he came forward to us and easily pulled apart the part around Connor's ankle like it was a piece of string rather than thick metal. He seemed quite pleased to be of use to as, as the ear splitting grin on his face seemed to easily convey. "There you go buddy, it's like it was never there"

"Thanks Malaki" Connor was clearly quite grateful for being broken out, holding out his fist in what was clearly meant to be some kind of fist bump. Malaki reciprocated the fist bump, and he made the general tell-tale sign of an Alpha by expressly making his gesture as gentle as he could so as not to cause his newfound friend any harm. "If I'm the last person to be found out of everyone, then we should be fine to leave"

"Not yet" I made the decision that we were not quite ready to leave yet, as we had only found our friends and nothing else, and I wasn't satisfied with that. Heck, we hadn't even found Gashin, who I really wanted to get my well-deserved revenge against. Paul did seem like he was more prepared to gamble a little more if it helped us, but convincing some of the others was going to be much harder. "If there's some information we can use against them, then we really need to find it"

"...You're playing a dangerous game if you want to go further, we should just leave before they find us" Tanner obviously disagreed with the plan I was coming up with, as it clearly contradicted against what Matthias had told us to do, but we had to do it lest we fall behind the Alpha again. Playing the meek little Omega who only ran away didn't sit right with me, not anymore.

"We can't afford to keep running away from this, they've already made multiple bases and are able to kidnap random people off the street and nobody will notice! If we don't do this now, then when will we?! When they've already taken over  _everything?!"_ I for once let my temper come to the fore, as I was absolutely sick and tired of their insistence that we keep running away and cowering from these people. After all, I was one of the lucky ones. I managed to have a boss who corrected the bribe that was going to send me to prison for someone who was trying to kidnap and possibly rape me, and I only managed to survive that one because I happened to have friends that would legitimately kill someone to protect me. But for anyone normal... That would have been a life of torture from that point on.

I had only lost my temper a few times in my life, one of which Connor had been witness to back on the Isles of Centica, but for the others this was the first outburst they had witnessed. At first there was the base shock that naturally come from seeing me so enraged, but this quickly devolved into sadness that I had even suffered through such events and even some understanding for what I was saying.

"I can go with whichever team is going further in" Malaki offered to come with me, as then we had an immensely strong person defending us and we could have even some up with a ruse that Malaki had captured us and was taking us in. His offer to help was greatly appreciated by me, as it meant that it was another think reinforcing my idea to keep trying to find things to cripple the army. "There's only like, three rooms beyond here and they're all very close to each other"

"That sounds perfect, you might even be able to carry me and Mila out in case we need to run very fast out of here" Paul already effectively was splitting us into two teams of three, because Connor, Amanda and Tanner would be the best to escape while Paul, Malaki and I moved onward without them. "Tanner, you lead Amanda and Connor out to the Banshee"

"Am I coming back for you three?" Tanner still felt he had to ask, as he likely didn't trust Malaki as much as Connor did (or at least, that's the impression I got from the slight side-eye he gave the former).

"No, if there are only three more rooms then we'll come out ourselves" Paul reassured him that we were going to be fine without him or Connor coming back for us. Not only those two, he reassured me that he agreed with what I said by gently giving me a one handed hug. I had exactly what I was aiming for, now it was just to make it count. "Last stretch, let's do this well"


	39. Ways to be wicked

"Through here there are three rooms" Malaki directed us to three rooms ahead of us as we came out of the forge, not including the other room not far away from ours (which we assumed was one of the doors to the meeting room). The three doors were placed with one to our left, one to our right and a single one straight ahead of us. From what I could spy from afar, the one ahead of us didn't lead any further into the base, which meant that we had reached the furthest point that existed in that point in time. "The door on the left is our first aid room, as much as most of these guys in this place believe that they can't be hurt. The door on the right holds our weapons stash and ahead is the room that contains our main computer"

"...These guys really don't know how to properly setup a base" Paul seemed both surprised, and yet not, at the fact that the base once again proved how poorly optimised it had been. In our own company we had a specific rule that all of our supplies had to be separated in the rare circumstance that we were raided for our supplies (that and the fact that it seemed nonsensical to keep the bandages near the weapons) so it seemed ridiculous that they kept them all together. "Ah well, that only benefits us I guess. Where do you think we should go first?"

"I'm thinking that if some Alpha come along at this time, they're more likely to go to either the computer room or the first aid room, so the weapons stash is the safest to first go through. Plus, there might be some kind of security on the computer that activates if a wrong password has been input, which is not what we want first" I listed off several reasons for why I thought the weapons stash had to come first and the computer room to go last, and after several seconds of silence it seemed clear that nobody else had any rebuttals to my thoughts.

"Yeah, the weapons room would be a good one to sabotage. It won't exactly get rid of the fact that Alpha can still kill someone easily with their bare hands, but it might mean that they won't be so lethal at range... No offense Malaki" Paul agreed with me, moving over to the right hand door while he apologised to Malaki for his generalising comment.

"None taken" Malaki accepted that it was an unfortunate side effect to sharing the same class type as most brutish Alpha, and still seemed intent on helping us regardless.

We unfortunately didn't get far into the room, as the moment Paul tried the handle on the door we heard a loud beeping noise that sounded negative in connotation. Right next to the handle seemed to be a similar scanner that was on the door that we had to get around to get into the base, meaning that they at least weren't stupid enough to leave their weapons without security.

"Darn. Well, I guess I should have assumed they weren't completely brain-dead" Paul released the handle with a bit of a grumble, obviously weighing up in his mind whether it was worth finding an Alpha to break in. While there certainly was merit to stealing or sabotaging their weapons, whether it was worth kicking the hornets’ nest (the sleeping and drowsy Alpha who hadn't noticed us yet) was another matter entirely. "Malaki, you wouldn't happen to have a key card on you?"

"I've got something better" Malaki gently placed himself beside Paul and tried the door again, only for the door to beep another negative sounding noise at him. He didn't stop there however, slowly but purposefully applying more pressure to the handle before it started to warp and bend the lock. When he eventually pulled the door open, his strength had done enough damage to the handle and lock that the door couldn't remain closed in a natural way, which let us in quite effectively. "I learned the hard way one time when I was trying a door in my home. It turns out that it was locked, but I only figured it out when I applied too much pressure and the door opened anyway"

"That's actually kind of a sophisticated way to open a door quietly" I marvelled at how quietly he had managed to get in, not even letting out a screech from the metal bending the wrong way. The only way Paul and I had seen an Alpha open a door that was locked was by literally kicking or bashing it down with their legs or shoulders, so it surprised us a little to see that someone could pull that off with the least noise possible. "Thank you Malaki"

"Yes, thank you very much" Paul also was just as grateful as I was, quickly urging us inside before anyone could come along to have a look at what had made the door beep. Some part of him was a tad bit envious that he couldn't be as much help as Malaki had been so far, so he added a small bit of a reminder in case Malaki hadn't gotten the hint yet about my relationship status. "But make sure you're not too awesome, wouldn't want my girlfriend to be completely smitten with you"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that" Malaki took the joke quite happily, even laughing a little with the insinuation that he was interested in me. "I'm not into girls, I like guys"

"Oh! How... How are you handling that with your fellow Alpha in this place?" I was curious about how he usually went about telling others about his sexual orientation, as the two Alpha I had overheard in the beginning of the base didn't exactly bode well for how well he had been treated in the past. "Not to be rude, but uh... I overheard some of the people in here and they didn't exactly sound very... Supportive"

"That's probably because they aren't" Malaki put it simply, shrugging his shoulders about it like it was something he had gotten over a long time ago. While it was something that he had gotten himself used to as a common reality, it still did seem to bother him a little bit, so there was the chance that it was another reason for why he had decided to not join his fellow class type. "I'm not usually so open about being gay because I've seen how some of my older friends treated others who were the same as me. I used to think that it was just them being stupid teens, you know? Like I could change them as they grew and matured, that maybe someday they'd stop treating gay people, Beta and Omega horribly"

"I'm going to make the informed guess that plan didn't exactly pan out as you had hoped" Paul could easily predict how this story ended for Malaki, which only got confirmed when the latter nodded with a regretful frown on his face. From what Paul had told me in the past about his fellow soldiers when he was in the military, it seemed to be a bit of a common theme with people in the current generation, where someone hoped that things would change naturally over time... Only to be sorely disappointed by the result. "I'm sorry to hear that man"

"I've accepted that there's not much I can do to change their mind now. The best I can do is to fix the mistake they've made and teach the next generation that it's completely unacceptable" Malaki steeled his shoulders once he was done walking down that uncomfortable side of memory lane, instead focusing on the room we had entered.

Much to my surprise, the room was less built with masses of weapons and more focused on storing as much ammo as they could find. There were more than twenty boxes all stacked in the room, some stacks even reaching as high as the roof, each one seeming like they were a ticking time bomb that only needed a single match to explode. There only was a single weapons rack on the side of the room, filled with four different guns that were brightly coloured.

"This is... Kind of underwhelming, to be honest" Paul wasn't impressed at all by the selection of weapons we had found, as it was even less than the amount of weapons we held at our own company. It got further proven to be correct when he carefully pulled one of the guns off the wall, only for it to half fall apart in his hands. "Is this the best you guys have? I'm starting to think the Alpha army is just going to be relying on brute force and sheer numbers to win. Five billion Alpha isn't something to sneeze at, but they're all going to be armed with only their fists at this rate"

"It's three billion right now" Malaki corrected Paul, showing that the army had not quite reached their peak of an army yet. Even so, it was a little too much for my liking if they were supposed to be attacking in eighteen years’ time. "But yeah, you're right; they're not armed well right now. They're too busy trying to get flashy weapons on Alfu rather than good weapons. Most of the army's weapons are coming from Zura, and the other Alpha are mainly coming from Alfenheim"

Zura and Alfenheim. Two of the other planets in our relatively small solar system, Zura was almost entirely a water planet that was barely held together by a massive maze of coral, but they had amazing weapons due to their new technology that had to focus a lot more on altering gravity (with devastating effects on the human body in a non-water filled environment). Alfenheim, on the other hand, was a massive all-encompassing city planet that bordered on both Alfu and Zura, where the majority of our solar system's inhabitants lived. The only planet that was larger was Pandora, but that one didn't hold more people simply because of the inhospitable environment, aggressive wildlife and murderous bandits that littered the land there. The final planet in our solar system was New Alkhazar, but that one was very tiny on the fringes of our space... Not to mention it was more known for having a lot of retired people and young children than functioning adults (it was kind of like the small town planet in our solar system that most teenagers wanted to escape when they grew old enough).

I had never particularly visited any of the other planets in our system, as my father was an Alfu denizen through and through. Even my mother, who had originally come from Alfenheim, had left her home planet to escape the hustle and bustle that existed there. Even so, I wondered a little about the people who lived on those other planets... Where they dealing with the same problems that we were on Alfu, or were they living in blissful ignorance?

"We obviously can't take all of these with us; the banshee would never support all their weight. That, and we don't know how reliable these bullets are" Paul disapproved of any notion of lugging those crates of ammo back to the base, even when he opened them it was hard to tell if the ammo was any safe to use. Various bits of gunpowder were strewn on top of the bullets, as though someone had sprinkled it on top to give it extra firepower, without being aware that it would likely backfire on them... Quite literally, if their weapons were equally bad. "Ew, I'm quite certain the reclaimed ammo you ordered looked better than these"

"I knew those suppliers were good" I teased him a little, despite the fact he had never really disapproved of them in the first place. He remembered that memory fondly, gently bumping one of my shoulders with his in a teasing manner. A devilish thought did start to appear in my mind for what we could do however, as I was still intent on seeing some kind of retribution come these Alpha's way. "...Could we stick a grenade in one of these before we leave?"

"Ooh, giving these guys a bit of a present to remember us by, I like it. It'll be like a magnificent fireworks show" Paul grinned in a wolfish manner, and it was obvious that Malaki also approved when he pumped his fist in the air excitedly. While typical for a male to react like that at the thought of chaos and destruction, I must admit, I was beginning to see the glory of it as well. He gently reached into one of the adjacent boxes and took a single grenade out before carefully cradling it in his hands, obviously designating himself as the person to set it off when the time came. "Alright, what's next?"

"Let's quickly take some of their first aid supplies, Bobby and several others might need it soon" I moved back out into the hallway carefully, keeping a wary eye out to make sure that no Alpha had arrived in the meantime. Eager to get out as quickly as we could now that we had plans to blow this section of the base (literally), I made a quick plan to split us up to quicken our pace. "Malaki, do you think you could go in and get a whole bunch of instant health vials?"

"You got it, I'll meet you guys in the computer room" Malaki didn't waste time, going through the door now across from us, as the Alpha had put no form of lock on that door for him to contend with. While he was busy in there finding some sort of satchel or backpack to transport the newly stolen goods in, Paul and I slinked off into the computer room.

Like the first aid room, this one didn't require us to have a key-card, and we entered quite easily into the dimly lit room. It wasn't quite as dark as Matthias' little nook in our own base, but it certainly reminded me a little bit of it once the computer detected our presence and immediately flared to life. In bold letters upon the holographic screen, the computer asked us to provide a password, which was exactly what I was not hoping to see.

"Well, there's only really one way to find out if it has an alarm on it" Paul waved his hands at the bottom of the screen to bring up the holographic keyboard, moving his fingers purposefully over the keys to input the word 'Alpha' as his first guess at a password. The screen turned red for a moment with the bright white lettering spelling out that the password was not correct, but we did not hear any sort of alarm go off in the base or on the screen. "It doesn't look like it, so that's good. Any ideas on what the password might be?"

"Maybe the date the Alpha army is planning on attacking?" I asked, only for Paul to slightly frown already at the idea of inputting that. "What? You guys do know when it's happening, right?"

"Yeah, the year, not the month or day" Paul wasn't that happy to inform me of that news, but he still input the year anyway to try it out. It still got back that it wasn't the password that the computer was looking for. It was about then that Malaki came into the room, with a very thick looking satchel sitting on his hip filled with instant health vials. "Hey Malaki, do you know the password?"

"No sorry, they never told me"

I let my mind wander as my eyes glanced around the small desk they had set up in the room. The both of them tried to figure it out with different names of Malaki's comrades, but I was particularly drawn to a single photo frame that I picked up it inspect closer. It was a picture of someone that I plainly didn't recognise holding a small dog up to the camera, with gentle pink coloured words spelled out the name 'Schnitzel', which likely was the name of the dog. While dogs certainly couldn't smile, both person and animal seemed to be beaming widely at whoever was taking the picture.

"...Try Schnitzel" I suggested the name to Paul, who admittedly did look a bit confused with the old Germanic name but input the name anyway to give it a go. My guess turned out to be the correct one, as the screen flashed bright neon green with the words 'password accepted' printed out loudly on it. I could already tell that the both of them wanted to know how I had managed to get it, so I flipped the photo frame around to show it to them. "A lot of people have their passwords as names of loved ones"

"Fair enough, I'd probably have my password be the name Mila" Paul proudly showed off how much he loved me, giving a small wink when he saw me giggle. Malaki just seemed happy, as he was likely quite the romantic himself around people who he cared about, so love being in the air just added to his upbeat demeanour. "Alright, now let's see what's on here"

The screen automatically opened to the main screen of some kind of system, and we realised we had hit a gold mine of information once we read what we could see. Not only did we have a section of other base locations for the army, we also had names of companies that supplied the Alpha Army on Zura and Alfenheim, had names of several police officers and law enforcement that were corrupt, all of the names of the Alpha army on Alfu... And an entire list of people they had captured. What drew Paul the most was the bottom tab that he could open up, which was listed as the armies 'targets'. When he opened up that tab, the very top result... Was Matthias.

'Interfered in the trial that resulted in the freedom of four rightful sinners' was the main reason listed for his possible target being put on his back, as well as the words that listed that he was to be killed on sight. I supposed it did make sense, as they had managed to capture the three guys who had caused Tadashi and Hank's death, and for all they knew I was dead.

"Wow, I do not envy whoever that is" Malaki obviously didn't catch onto the fact that me and Paul knew exactly who that was, as he must have missed the both of us staring absolutely shocked that he was the highest priority. Well whatever, if he was coming with us he would meet him sooner or later.

"It's times like these that I wish that I had Matt's talent" Paul mumbled that remark to himself as he began to download the information down on a USB for us to take with us. A warning popped up on the screen that worried me for a second, but once we all read it we were actually quite relieved. "...Warning; the information on this computer will be deleted after it has been copied to avoid chances of spreading this information around to the wrong people"

"...They really aren't the brightest crayons in the bunch, aren't they?" I asked with a laugh, which the other two agreed with because frankly, the entire base was supporting that argument. It was only when the USB was nearly completely copied that another warning popped up which set my adrenaline reserves into overdrive. 'If the information on this computer should ever be deleted, a warning shall be sounded throughout the entire base to remind the people inside'. "Ah, and there's the information on the contrary"

"Get ready to run, I'm going to be lying in wait in the weapon room with the grenade" Paul announced this new plan to us as he gently pulled himself away from the screen, which I took over as he held tight onto the grenade that he had stolen earlier. "When you guys come running past, I'll set it off"

We waited with bated breath as the final percentages of the copy ticked away on the screen. Ninety-Nine percent... One hundred. The moment it was done I carefully removed the USB from the machine, and at the exact same moment an excruciatingly loud alarm started to screech into life. It was loud enough that I couldn't even make out what Malaki said to me, I just had to clench tightly onto that USB as he dragged me out of that room and towards safety.


	40. Million Miles an Hour

The blaring alarm felt like it was less to alert the Alpha in the base and more like it had been made to absolutely disorient someone whoever had set it off. This further was reinforced by the fact that Paul soon came out of his room and tried to shout over the alarm, only to get nowhere. We knew he had to have pulled the pin on the grenade before joining us again, so both he and I tried to run ahead before Malaki stopped us both by sternly pulling on our wrists back to him.

People likely could see for a moment in my eyes (and possibly Paul's as well) that I thought that Malaki had betrayed us and was trying to keep us from escaping. He proved me wrong when he hoisted both Paul and I off the ground by our waists and began to furiously run through the hallways we had come through at a breakneck pace. There was nothing that the both of us being carried could really do to help in the situation, so all I focused on was keeping both of my hands tightly wrapped around that USB in fear of dropping it on the ground and not having time to go back for it.

Malaki did have some sense in him for an Alpha, as he proceeded to charge into the forge we had come through earlier, as there were less people going to be there in the first place. After frightening the living daylights out of me and my boyfriend (it was kind of funny, as I could just barely hear that his squeal was a higher pitch than mine) by leaping up onto the top row of the walkway, we were out of the forge in record time.

Next was the theatre where we had found Gunner and Mayu in, and this was the moment that we ran out of our long running luck. Around three Alpha were in the theatre, hale and hearty, looking behind the curtains on the stage and finding their unconscious friends. There wasn't much they could do to stop us in such short notice however, just watching helplessly as they realised that we were likely the ones to set off the alarms, but by the moment they realised their mistake we were out of the next set of doors.

Running full speed past the room that contained the entire group of sleeping Alpha proved to be a scary experience, as the moment we had passed them we could suddenly hear the vast amount of people in there all shouted as they realised that we were the ones they needed. Soon it sounded like we truly had kicked the hive, a veritable horde of stampeding feet coming after us as Malaki pushed his legs to their extreme to beat their sleepy forms.

It was then that we heard a massive explosion from further inside the base, as well as several smaller explosions afterwards that sounded like it was trying to resemble fireworks. Our little package had obviously done its job well, even doing enough to distract that horde of Alpha that had originally been after us for a couple of seconds.

"Turn right!" Paul was paying enough attention to give a set of orders to Malaki once we charged past the interrogation room and the two dividing hallways, and Malaki obediently followed his orders without a single question. Down the hallway now were the doors we had originally come through, and it seemed clear from Malaki's speed that he was planning on breaking it down rather than slowing down to open it normally.

I braced myself as best as I could, but it seemingly wasn't necessary as Malaki angled himself at the last second to bring the brunt of the damage onto his shoulder, which easily popped the doors off their hinges like it was the lid of a soda can. Paul decided that he didn't want to run the risk of Alpha being able to hear his next set of instructions, so instead he directed Malaki with a sharp jerk to the latter's shirt in the correct direction. The turrets at the front of the base still hadn't gotten the memo yet that something was going on, so they kept harmlessly checking the skies for ships rather than people zooming across the grass between trees.

"Ah, I see it!" Malaki could easily notice first the rope, then the Banshee that said rope lead up to. He began to slightly readjust me and Paul, because of course he'd need both arms to climb correctly, so instead he made sure that the both of us were able to tightly hold onto him around his neck as he prepared himself. "Hold on tight!"

And hold on I did, both onto my own arms and onto the USB still tightly clenched in my hands, nearly shrieking again once he leaped onto the rope. He climbed up that thing like he was a descendant of Tarzan himself, arm over arm with complete ease while I was struggling just to keep myself still on him. By the time that we were nearly up to the Banshee did the other Alpha from the base seem to catch up with us, one of them even beginning to jump onto the rope as well.

"Whoa!" I could hear Marvin struggle slightly with the sudden dip that was coming from the other Alpha that were beginning to climb up the rope, making the Banshee dip dangerously low down to several branches that would mess with the engine in case they came in contact with them. "Guys, what's causing the extra weight?!"

Tanner poked his head out of the Banshee once the ship started to complain about excess capacity, and he clearly could notice the Alpha beginning to swarm up behind us. By that point Malaki had gotten the three of us onto the ship in one piece, so Tanner made the executive decision to take a sharp knife from his belt and cut the rope off our ship. The ship suddenly veered upwards once we were free from the rope, all of the Alpha falling back to the ground while Marvin struggled to get control over the ship again. I nearly went sliding backwards out of the open door but I managed to be caught by my arm by Tanner, who dragged me back inside to safety.

"Like hell are we going anywhere without you! Not after we've done so well!" Tanner insisted as he dragged me far inwards before the ship doors closed, and I found myself clinging onto his shirt as I found my own balance. I most certainly was grateful, not just to be saved from possibly plummeting into a literal pile of Alpha, but to hear his praise as well.

Everyone inside the ship was either completely strapped into their seats or stumbling around and trying to get their balances back as Marvin struggled to regain control while not crashing into the massive trees around us. Paul, somehow managing to find a sliver of his balance in the absolutely chaotic situation, managed to stumble his way to the cockpit and take over the controls from Marvin, which finally gave us some support.

"Guh, if I thought I was going to be sick last time, I'm certainly going to be this time" Connor joked from his seat next to Amanda, but if the slightly green tinge to him was anything to go by, he was serious this time. Regardless, I loved hearing his voice again after being separated from him, and evidently Amanda loved to hear the joke as she heartily laughed at it.

"Everyone who isn't seated better find one, we're not out of the woods yet!" Paul ordered the rest of us to find seats, which I was more than happy to do. Malaki immediately went for the one still left on the other side of Connor, while I went for one in between Bobby and Katra. I could just barely spy that Tanner was originally going for one next to Paul in the cockpit, when he realised that Marvin had of course taken that one, which instead made him scramble for the last one that was next to Katra.

"Oh darling, I'm so relieved to see that you're fine! I think I was going to sprout some grey hairs if you were going to be much longer!" Katra exaggerated her worry a little as I strapped myself in, her patting my leg in such an excessive way that I really just wanted to laugh with how extra she was being. Extra was the perfect way to explain everything that she was, and honestly I didn't want her any other way.

"If anyone was going to sprout grey hairs from stress, it was going to be me" I laughed a bit as I fretted over my hair, quickly afterwards pulling on my straps to make sure that I wasn't going to go anywhere.

"Oh honey, I wish I had your hair" Katra didn't seem to believe the idea that I could even grow grey hairs naturally, but all I could do in response to that statement was to laugh. I would love nothing more than to normally grow old with grey hair with all of my loved ones around me, and I would fight to give that future the best chance it would ever have.

 **"Warning; Banshee over capacity. Please lessen load"** The ship still was announcing that the amount of people we had weren't really ideal for flying it once me and Katra quietened down, as we of course had taken more people with us than we had originally planned for. Paul grumbled a little, as it meant that he couldn't shoot off with our cloaking technology still on, which meant that he had to switch it off and direct extra power to the engines to deal with the extra weight.

"Hold on!" I heard those words for the second time that day, before I could suddenly feel the Banshee surge upwards and break through the canopy of the trees. We weren't completely scot-free however, as not long after we could hear loud noises puncture the air around the outside of the ship, which meant that someone in that base had finally had the sense to man their turrets and fire them at us as we raced away from them. But by far the worst part of the bunch was the next bunch of warnings that we got from the Banshee.

**"Warning; heat seeking missiles detected"**

"Oh, of course, why not?!" Paul in frustration threw his hands up for a split second before his hands were back on the controls and pushing the ship to go as fast as it could, hopefully to outrun the missiles before they locked onto the ship. "Why not add bio signature missiles while you're at it?! Or who knows, maybe you should make this route in the air have some more anti-air guns?!"

"Don't tempt them! Or at the very least, don't tempt fate!" Gunner angrily called over to Paul from his seat just two away from me, sitting just beyond Bobby.

"Fate can kiss my ass!" Paul was clearly not in the mood to be heckled by someone who wasn't flying the ship by that point, and honestly I wasn't willing to step in and stop the both of them from fighting. Personally, I thought that he had every right to be disgruntled with all of the things going on right now. He already had a ship shouting at him, so he really didn't need another person from our crew doing the same.

**"Warning; heat seeking missiles locked on"**

"Damn it!" Paul shouted out in protest as he failed to evade the missiles seeking capabilities, using all of his flying skills to try and make sure that this wouldn't be our final journey. "Hold on guys, I'm going to be dipping below the canopy again in order to make it explode against a tree instead!"

**"Warning; Banshee over capacity. Please-**

"SHUT UP!! I KNOW!!" Paul angrily flicked off the Banshee's warning systems, as frankly this was the angriest I had ever seen him. Almost immediately afterwards he dipped down into the canopy that it felt like some of us would have gotten whiplash if it was any harder. Bobby definitely was taking it the worst, groaning in pain with each sudden jerk of the ship, and I did my best to comfort him by taking his hand.

Down into the trees of Lomu again was like a maze, Paul having to swerve and shift almost every second to dash around a new tree that sprouted up from nowhere. Even so, there was no tell-tale noise of an explosion from behind us, which gave a pretty clear indication that this was not a missile that could be dissuaded from its target by a maze like the one we were going through. Leave it up to those bastards to skimp on everything in their base except for their stupid missiles.

"Please tell me you have another plan!" Mayu decided that it was high-time for Paul to come up with another plan after about the thirtieth swerve of the ship, as by then we could all tell that it was not going to save us.

"I do have one more, but this one is going to be rough!" Paul called out to us, and soon afterwards we could feel him soar upwards out of the canopy again. "Hold on!"

"You've told us that already! You need some new material!" Kevin tried to sprinkle in some little bit of humour, but it was clear from Paul's following words that it had missed it's original intent this time.

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to stick bithids in you next!"

"I don't think that works on Omega hombre!"

"Kevin! Shut up!" Marvin finally managed to silence his brother, who oddly seemed to be more scared of his younger brother than any rage that Paul could dish out. With everyone now silent (including the pesky ship), Paul had complete silence to work.

His plan was... Certainly unconventional. Instead of anything like dodging and weaving like he had been doing for the last number of minutes, he directed the Banshee upwards to soar through the canopy and high into the air. Whatever he was planning on doing, he clearly wanted more room than the forest would be able to provide him.

Once he was high up enough in the air, he cut the engines to the Banshee, and allowed our ship to plummet downwards towards the ground. If all of the rest of us hadn't been strapped in, I'm quite certain we would have slammed into the top of the roof but luckily the worst we were experiencing by that point was that feeling you managed to get on a roller coaster, amplified to a heavier degree than any ride we had been on. When the ship reached a downwards trajectory that was essentially heading straight downwards to the ground, Paul kicked the engines back on, and made the Banshee do a move that I thought was completely impossible.

For a brief moment we tilted around enough to fly upside down, with our main weapons now instead pointing towards the missile which was catching up to us. All he needed to do then was fire one volley of rockets from our reserves, which all hit their intended target magnificently, causing a huge fire filled explosion that shook the ship from it's shock-wave.

After the missile was no more, the Banshee's automatic stabilisers kicked in, quickly altering the engines so that the ship righted itself so that we were the right way up again. Paul deemed himself calm enough to turn on the ships warning systems to check if anything else had been sent against us along with that missile.

 **"Warning; Banshee over capacity. Please lessen load"** We knew about that warning, so we waited for bated breath after that one to hear if the ship had detected anything else.

...Several seconds passed by, but we heard nothing. Paul soon flicked that back off in favour of turning his sonar system on for a second, and once again, we were greeted with pure silence. He still proceeded to fly the ship for another couple of minutes after that, hoping that we truly were done.

Five minutes later, he turned the autopilot on for the ship, and let it cruise back to the base on its own. That seemed to be the final thing that let everyone else know that we were home free, several people cheering loudly from their seats or high fiving the people who were strapped in next to them. Me, I decided that Paul deserved some well earned praise, so I gently disconnected myself from my seat before making my way to the cockpit.

"I'm so proud of you!" I greeted him with the happiest of grins across my face, and he laughed as I practically leaped onto his lap to give him a warm hug. Marvin quickly managed to give me and Paul each our own high-five, before he unclipped himself to check on the people behind us. And who knows, maybe it was also because he wanted to give us some privacy.

"Me too, you were amazing" Paul returned the sentiment by kissing me softly on the cheek. His beard and moustache ended up tickling my skin, so I naturally giggled a little bit at the affectionate gesture. My laughter seemed to be music to his ears, as he smiled as well before purposefully rubbing his beard against me to make me laugh more.

The way I was perched on Paul's lap gave me enough room to notice the others in the back of the ship. Most notably, Bobby, Gunner and Connor could clearly see how affectionate me and Paul were being together. Even if we hadn't expressly told them yet (and not all of them received Kevin's hint), something about how open we were being seemed to tip them off that something was different... And it seemed as if they were not happy with what they saw.

Don't get me wrong, none of them were mad. Just... Varying degrees of sad, ranging from the mildest in Gunner to the utmost in Bobby. The only positive I could think of the situation was that they wouldn't be blindsided to the discussion I was going to have with them later, unlike Tanner.

"I guess there is still one thing that we have to deal with when we get back to the company; Matt" Paul sobered up a little, looking over at how many people we had saved. It was true, there was no way that we were going to be able to slip by Matthias unnoticed, as he could likely see immediately that we had ignored his rule of not stirring up trouble. Saving more than a single person wasn't the only thing, as we had also fired some of the rockets from the ship, and we clearly had taken an Alpha from the base with us. "...I don't think he's going to be very pleased"

"No, he won't" I agreed with him, already dreading the anger Matthias might direct our way. As long as he didn't turn those dark eyes to me, I supposed I could say I was pleased with the result, but the butterflies in my gut seemed to say that we weren't going to be so lucky. "This resistance needs to change if we're going to make progress however, and that means that someone is going to have to speak up against Matthias' current methods. And if that person has to be me, well... I guess that's how it has to be"

"I'll still have your back no matter what, but I'm still not going to be very comfortable with Matthias being absolutely pissed at me" Paul laughed a bit nervously, as he likely could imagine just as well as I could what the result of that would end up being. It was exactly what I was feeling, so I knew exactly what words to say to try to help lighten the mood one last time before we were home.

"Oh, trust me, neither am I"

The rest of the way back was quiet beyond the slight chatter of people in the back of the ship, Mayu and Gunner talking to each other while Connor and Amanda did the same. Malaki was assisting both Tanner and Katra in giving Bobby some well needed instant health vials, which were serving to slowly fix his broken bones and bruised skin. Paul, Marvin, Kevin and I, we had our eyes glued ahead of us to the company building that was slowly coming into sight, a feeling of dread washing over us as the ship started to softly descend to the landing pad.

It was time to face the music.


	41. Until the wolves come out

The ship touched down safely on the top of the company roof, it being almost night by that point. Our arrival clearly didn't go unnoticed, as we could all see that Jfred, Bryan, Blaire and Matthias were waiting outside for us. Something must have already tipped Matthias off that our mission didn't go as he had hoped, as his arms were already crossed before we even could disembark.

Tanner was understandably frightened to leave the ship first and receive the brunt of Matthias' anger, so it took me and Paul leaving the ship first to give everyone that tiny bit of courage to follow behind us. Even as I tried to keep my head up high and be unafraid, there was a sinking feeling in my gut that honestly made me want to hide behind Paul as we left the ship... I only barely managed to banish that idea from my mind when it actually came time to move.

It was Paul and I first, with Kevin, Marvin, Katra and Tanner following closely behind us because they knew they couldn't hide on the ship forever. If anything, Matthias likely would be even more annoyed if one of us had attempted to hide from him.

Only when all of our kidnapped comrades (and new allies) came out did Matthias seem to get more irritated, his fingers dancing in an agitated way over his arms when he realised just how many people we had taken with us. Forget returning the moment we had a single person from our trio, we had taken six people from that base... One of which clearly looked like an Alpha with Malaki's broad and muscular physique. It took our rescued allies a bit to realise that something was off in the way we were being received, but after a couple of seconds it became clear that they didn't want to get in the middle of it.

"What. The hell. Is this?" Matthias angrily asked us, clearly angling his eyes towards Tanner, as last he had checked he was in charge of our mission. He seemed to be barely able to restrain his anger, his sentence broken into short venomous segments as though he was worried he was going to fly into a rage if he attempted it all at once. Tanner shrunk under his gaze, obviously unsure of how he was going to explain his side of the story without completely losing respect from his boss. Not only had he relinquished his leadership role during the mission, he hadn't protested enough at the change of plans that he likely was a dead man walking if he even remotely attempted to explain it. "I'm talking to you Tanner; I expect an answer from you"

"Tanner suffered a slight panic attack in the beginning of the mission, so I took over for him" Paul covered for his friend, surprising Tanner a little bit when he even shifted slightly to stand in front of him. Like he had hoped, Matthias' attention soon shifted over to Paul entirely, likely both because it was inferred that Tanner had no part in the change of plan and simply because now Paul was the one in his line of sight.

"So, it was you who made the decision to shift the original plan?" Matthias' frown became more pronounced the more he was learning about how this had all gone down, clearly wanting to figure out who he was supposed to punish for this new problem. Paul momentarily looked like he was considering taking the fall for me, as he was likely already in trouble for following along with my plan, but I wasn't going to let him do that for me. Someone had to be the one to get it through Matthias' admittedly thick skull that skulking around in the shadows wasn't going to do anything good for our movement anymore, and I felt as if nobody else would have the courage to tell him that beyond me.

"No sir, that was my idea" I took complete responsibility for that part, and I almost immediately regretted it when Matthias shifted his furious gaze over to me. His eyes nearly replicated that very same rage he could hold in those dark eyes of his, and I had to clench my fists by my side to not curl in on myself. I forced myself to look him in the eyes even as I felt like I was inviting my doom to do so, but I held firm while still keeping my respect for him like I would for any other person who fought for this planet. "If we came back after rescuing one person only, then there was a good chance that they would be dead or moved to another base. I decided that we couldn't do that, as this was going to the be the only time we got the drop on them like this"

My remarks initially got me stony silence, as Matthias was clearly employing the method used by interrogators who intentionally remained quiet in order for the person to spill their secrets. Unfortunately for him, I knew that tactic well and kept my mouth shut, as I had said my piece for the time being. I didn't even dare to look out of the corner of my eyes at the six people we had managed to rescue, but I could just barely spy that a number of them were shocked to learn that the original plan had been set up for them to be left behind. Bobby looked the worst out of them, as not only did he have the worst injuries out of his group, but he had been the very first to be rescued.

"Mila, have you ever led a team before?" Matthias seethed through his teeth at me, obviously expecting what my answer was going to be before I had said it. He already knew that I hadn't, he had asked me that before we had set off on the mission, but somehow he wanted to hear me repeat it aloud.

"No sir" I obediently answered him like I would a general that my father had known, standing my ground and looking him in the eyes even as he began to slowly advance towards me.

"Have you been trained to lead a team before this mission, beyond what Tanner taught you?" He asked another question, being close enough in my personal space that it felt like he was trying to tower over me despite him not being that taller than me.

"No sir" I purposefully tilted my head slightly backwards so that I could still look him in the eyes even as he loomed over me, both Paul and Tanner looking worriedly over at what was unfolding. The both of them looked like they were considering intervening to shift the blame back off me again, but I waved them away the moment they opened their mouths to say anything. That movement didn't slip by Matthias unnoticed, who clearly was noticing that the two of them were still following what I was saying and suggesting even long after the mission was over. How he felt about it, I wasn't quite sure yet, his facial features were hard to read beyond the anger being presented front and centre.

"Have you ever even remotely won a fight against an Alpha, on your own, in any capacity?" Matthias didn't focus on both of the guys trying to come to my rescue for very long, his eyes and attention snapping back to me so fast that I was certain he would have gotten whiplash if he had moved his head that fast.

"No sir" I definitely couldn't remember doing that, not even in the verbal sense. Any time an Alpha tried to pick a verbal fight with me at school it never particularly went anywhere because they refused to accept defeat, and every time I had a physical fight (which I had only had a number of since joining P.W.C.) I had always won because there were others to assist me or do the fighting for me. I knew I was on Omega through and through, you wouldn't find me attempting to start a fight with an Alpha without allies or weapons to help me out.

 **"THEN HOW IN ALL OF HEAVEN AND ALFU'S SAKE, DID YOU THINK THAT YOU WERE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR THIS MISSION?!"** Matthias finally seemed to lose his cool, his temper and voice flying so high that it even made his brothers cringe behind him from the sudden change in volume. If anything, him losing his calm demeanour meant that I was spurred on to keep to my side of the argument sternly. I refused to shout at him like he had just done to me, but I certainly tried to match the intense energy that he showed me.

"Because someone had to sir! I am an Omega, as you already know, and several others can attest to the fact that I have kept my cool in several stressful situations and given them sound ideas!" I allowed my resolve to show through my voice and actions, my right fist even unconsciously lifting up to rest over my heart like I used to do when greeting different military officials. If he thought I was being sarcastic when I made that gesture, he wasn't showing it. "We can't really afford to be hiding in the shadows and trying to keep a low profile when it's clear that we've lost that privilege long ago! If we're truly going to make a difference, then it's time to finally kick those Alpha right where it hurts, without stopping to second guess ourselves! That is why I made those decisions!"

That heavy silence seemed to return for a bit, as he hadn't quite expected a response like that to his question. Several of the people we had rescued looked proud to hear me charge forward into advising the movement, so much so that I could see the bright smiles adorned on Bobby, Gunner, Mayu and Connor's face, even though the air was still thick with tension between Matthias and I.

As for Matthias, well, he was glancing slowly between everyone present on that rooftop. His eyes did seem to linger longer on Tanner, Paul and my own faces, and his rage seemed to dull ever so slightly. He still looked really unbelievably annoyed, but at the very least it was diminishing in how intense it was. Less like 'I'm going to tear someone's head off', and more towards 'I am really frustrated that this happened'.

"...Paul, Tanner" Matthias spoke their names as he rested on them for a period of time, the both of them stiffening just a little in that tell-tale military way that signified that they were listening to what he was going to say afterwards. "The both of you are removed from your positions and are demoted down to common soldiers of this company"

Both of their faces fell at being told that, with Tanner even looking like he was considering opening his mouth and protesting against that decision... Before slowly shutting his mouth as he realised that it likely wouldn't overturn their boss' decision. Paul just sighed deeply before closing his eyes, obviously disgruntled with the decision but accepting it regardless.

"As for you" Matthias then turned to me, a single finger pointed at me in an almost accusatory way. I expected him to fire me on the spot, but he took a couple of seconds to think over what he actually was going to say before settling on what he wanted to do. "Come with me. If you refuse to, then consider yourself let go from this company"

With that, he spun on his heel and began marching off towards one of the entrances back into the company. Almost instantly I charged after him, my feet quickly pattering over the concrete roof in order to keep up with his slightly longer legs. Matthias didn't even spare me or the others a second glance, obviously thinking that if I truly was going to come with, that stopping for me was useless.

I only had a split second to look behind me, noticing that everyone was watching the both of us leave. Most looked worried for my safety, or at the very least worried for my job's safety, but there wasn't much they could do for me. Right as people finally started to come forward to take care of the injured did I have to turn back around, as I knew that I had to pay attention to where Matthias was going in the worry that I'd somehow lose him in the maze of corridors that was our own company building.

He descended down a ladder pretty speedily, matched by me as I practically slid down it like it was a fire pole. By that point Matthias could likely hear that I was following behind him closely, and for some reason he seemed... Relieved.

As much as my earlier statement of finding the company building completely confusing to navigate, I was actually beginning to understand where everything was much better by then. After the third turn around a corner, I recognised several different things that gave me a hint as to where we were going. True enough, Matthias eventually turned down into the tiny closet that he called his office, fishing out a key and unlocking the door for us to enter.

"Watch out for the cables" He felt he had to warn me again as we entered, likely because he had seen how novice I was in seeing the room while it had been broad daylight. It wasn't that much harder at night however, as the amount of light in the room remained relatively the same as it had been the first time I had entered; practically nothing beyond the glow of his computer. "I need you to understand why I'm mad. It's not just something as simple as that you didn't listen, it's because I know how easy it would be for you guys to be on the receiving end of the wrath that these guys have stupidly built up for so long"

Climbing over the cables was much easier now that I knew about them well in advance, being able to step around them quite proficiently until we reached his desk. He gestured for me to sit on the one available chair that wasn't his once again, which I took.

Silently, he began to unlock his computer and specifically open a particular folder that was labelled 'Alfu news'. He cast a quick glance over to me before he opened it, making sure that I was paying attention and that I was ready for what he was going to show me. I met his eyes before giving a stern nod, as I had a hunch already of what was in that folder.

When he did finally open it, it expanded to a ridiculous degree where the entire holo-screen of the computer was filled with nothing but masses of words and articles. In total, there were around three hundred different news articles, all of which had some mention of Alpha in it. The oldest one from two years before was understandably tame, something as simple as a young Alpha child not being charged after they stole food from a street vendor, but some from this year were... Horrific.

"Seven female Omega were found beaten to death and assaulted in the Lomu forest" I read one of the particularly grisly articles from only... Christ, a month prior. The front picture had thankfully been blurred out by Matthias, sparing me from the actual pictures that someone could somehow calmly take of those poor girls. "A suspect was arrested and tried for their murders, however he was released due to inconclusive evidence"

"The inconclusive evidence was the fact that he was a twin" Matthias informed me about that one, as he clearly had read through all of the articles he had saved to possibly use later. He sighed as I gently started to move the mouse around to see more articles, especially so when he and I both realised that there was one day three weeks ago that had a whopping total of seventeen articles dedicated to Alpha breaking the law but somehow getting away with it. The only reason I could see for him holding the articles was to one day release them all at once to the public, perhaps to warn the unaware members of our society to be careful. "Apparently both brothers had the same DNA, so it was hard to prove which one of them had done it"

"But that's nowhere near enough to get someone judged as not guilty for a crime" I growled a little at the realisation that they were likely released for little other reason than the fact that they were Alpha, which Matthias sighed at once again in agreement with that sentiment. "...Are you showing me this as a warning about what might happen to us if we stop hiding in the shadows?"

"More along the lines of what we'll be up against. This isn't going to be a walk in the park, and it's obvious that not everybody can handle being the leader of the away team... Tanner and Paul proved that" Matthias finally swivelled his chair around to face me, where I clearly noticed that his anger had left. It was like watching a balloon deflate, finally coming to the hard realisation that he really couldn't keep hiding if we wanted to make a difference when the army actually decided to come out of hiding. "Mila, what I'm going to ask you to do is going to sound absolutely insane"

"Can't be more insane than breaking into a base with Alpha holding our friends hostage" I reminded him of what most people would already consider an impossible feat, and he patiently waited for me to quiet down before he could continue. "I'm listening"

"I want you to prove to me that you're a good leader, not just because you're able to come up with smart plans but because you have your head on straight and can pull things off that the others can't" Matthias tasked me a new mission that felt easy compared to what I had just managed to accomplish with my group, especially so when I already had step one down. With a triumphant flourish, I presented the USB we had managed to fill with all of the information from the base to Matthias, who looked confused on why I was handing him the small device. "...Why are you giving me this?"

"It's completing step one of proving that I'm a good leader, I have the right information necessary to launch an assault on another base of theirs on the other side of the Gafi desert" I explained it in as minor detail as I could, just wanting him to figure it out without my help. After some prompting from me, he warily inserted the USB into his computer... And was utterly shocked at the information all presented to him. "It's another reason why we can't we can't hide anymore, they have you listed as their main target currently"

"I... Wait, hold on a moment" Matthias was a little overwhelmed with what I had given him, as he hadn't even the time to register it all. He did seem to understand and trust my words however, as he pulled out his phone and began to dial his wife in a hurry; likely to warn her to get into hiding before something could possibly happen to his family. As he pressed the phone to his ear, he asked me one final question before I knew that we were going to be full steam ahead. "What base are you aiming for?"

I carefully went through the files until I found the one I had spotted before that caught my interest, the GPS location of where it was located being burned into the back of my mind.

"I heard some of the Alpha in the base talking about someone who was building those horrifying suits for them. This is the only one listed as 'armour production', so I'm certain this is the one we want to take care of before they equip their army with them" I explained my reasoning for choosing that one, as it was the only one out of the amount of bases to choose from that would really nip a potential problem in the bud. Already preparing to head out even though we had just gotten back, I squared my shoulders as I stood up, fighting off the growing sense of sleep that was building in my system to get a head start on the Alpha who know knew that we were planning things. "I'm planning on taking the eleven people that were present on the Banshee with me towards that base, but we're planning on heading there on foot to avoid any sort of anti-air missiles as well as not rouse too much more suspicion until we get a new base. Does that work well with your current plans?"

"Yeah, that sounds good" Matthias seemed to relax that very small amount since I was already taking the bull by the horns, effectively giving me the go ahead to head out once again. We would have to take it a bit slower than usual with our injured team members, but it was worth it to get a head start. "Make me proud"

I met his small welling prideful smile with a bright grin of my own, flashing him a thumbs up as I set out. It was time to do more than just prove how good I was at coming up with the right plans and leading; It was time to actually start winning this war.

 

**End of record - Rescue**


	42. Complicated

**Record four - Recover**

 

"Are you sure that you guys don't want to take the Banshee with you again?" Bryan fretted over us like we were somehow all his biological children, a funny change from his general somewhat strict demeanour that he employed around us. Who knows, it likely was another side effect of the oncoming war, which made him worry for us just as much as Matthias was doing. The only brother out of that trio that wasn't worrying was Jfred, and I had a feeling he purposely was holding off from doing that simply  _because_ we already had two worried father-like figures doing that (not that Jfred would ever be seen as a father figure, he was always going to be the weird uncle or rowdy brotherly type).

"I'm sure. It would be faster, but we don't want to have to deal with their superior missiles or anti-air guns again, so going on foot would likely be the better alternative" I assured Bryan that we were going to be fine, shifting the backpack on my own back just a little bit higher so that it didn't make me slouch. The three brothers and Blaire were still staying behind, but not without waving the rest of us off from the company's front doors. "Besides, they might have different defences set up against Banshee's now that they know we use one"

I cast a quick glance over the now newly dubbed 'away team' that I was leading, everyone readying themselves for a brisk running pace so that we would cross more ground over time. The only person that wasn't going to be running for a while was Bobby, who was settled onto the back of Malaki, who was more than happy to act as a form of transport for the injured Beta.

The only real thing we had managed to do before packing up and leaving was letting people change their clothes and take a quick shower if they had wanted to. This meant that Mayu was able to change out of the silly costume those other Alpha had stuck her into, and it meant that Katra and I could put some better clothes on to deal with the increased heat that we were going to be dealing with in the Gafi desert.

"You guys have everything packed and ready?" I felt more than a little bit bad for the fact that I was carrying less than the majority of them, what with me being an Omega, but the others all gave me confident smiles and gestures that told me that they weren't bothered by the weight differences in our packs. Another big difference was the fact that we were now armed with guns as well, the injectors being handed over to Kevin and Marvin as well as myself.

"It's a shame that you guys have to leave so soon after returning, I can't do my psychology reports on any of you" Blaire did huff slightly about the fact that we were going to be missing her so far well scheduled sessions, but there always was the time to do those later.

"It is, but I'm more worried about what would happen if this armour creator were to make more of those suits" Connor was firmly in agreement with the fact that handling this base was more important than our appointments with Blaire, as of course he had been missing for the previous round of them as it was. It felt comforting as always to see that trusty satchel on his back, filled to the brim with supplies from his forge that he had no doubt missed in his absence. "But more than anything, I'm eager to slam my mallet into the smug faces of any Alpha we come across in that base"

"You're only going to be doing that if Mila orders you to" Paul pointedly reminded the gung-ho Beta of that fact, seemingly taking his demotion quite well and making sure that others listened to me now that I was the one leading the charge. Connor still seemed to be slightly unsure about taking orders from me rather than Tanner or Paul, as did a number of others who weren't on the team rescuing them, but they soon pushed aside those thoughts in place of actually listening to me. Now with everyone mainly on board, Paul referred to me with a sharp nod of his head like he was listening to his superior, but the smile on his face told me that he was equally following my orders because he thought of me as his equal. "Ready when you are"

"We'll be back in about a week" I did my best to keep our goodbye from those four remaining behind as short as possible, turning around and commanding the others long before I could hear a response from them. There of course was the garbled combination of Matthias telling us to be careful and Bryan wishing us luck, which was appreciated, before we truly set out. "Let's go"

With a new device placed on my arm that Matthias had created for me, I followed the precise directions towards the base that I had plotted out in my mind, before I started running in the correct direction. It didn't take long for the others to come after me... And frankly, outmatched me in their speed.

Clearly doing the best was Malaki, but he seemed to be carefully making sure that his speed didn't outpace us. Running next to him was sort of like running in the middle of a stampeding herd, his heavy footsteps feeling a little like they were shaking the ground. Next were Connor and Gunner, who seemed almost elated to be able to run without being held back... This did make sense, as they had been the ones with their ankles bound while being captured. In a mass group, Paul, Tanner, Katra, Mayu and Amanda came surging past me in their group of five, keeping pace with each other extremely well. Lagging behind just a little bit were Kevin and Marvin, as while they had gotten much better in their own individual physical exercise, they of course couldn't beat the others.

It felt a little bit weird that I was the only one who was having extreme difficulty with the running, a couple of people even looking back at me once we were a couple of minutes underway. I was several metres behind them, and it didn't seem like I was going to be catching up anytime soon.

"Do you want to be carried? There's no shame if you do" Malaki immediately offered to carry me as well as Bobby, and I knew that he could easily do that. He had shown when he carried me and Paul that we were essentially like feathers to him, which was both funny and a little terrifying to me.

"No... I can... I can do it" I struggled to say those words past my burning lungs, and that likely was the final hint that I actually was struggling a lot more than my words could communicate. They didn't want to ignore my words and help me against my will, but in place of that they all slowed down a bit so that I was able to be integrated into their group. "Thanks..."

Several hours later, the sun went down over the Gafi desert, which left us in the simple darkness of the night. After being praised for keeping up with the others (despite the fact I felt like I could probably cough up one of my lungs by then), we set out to make a simple camp site.

"I've got the kindling and fire starters with me, so I'm going to start making our fire" Gunner suggested the idea to me, and I at least managed to give him a nod of the head even if I wasn't able to give him a verbal response. "Mayu, could you help me find some proper fire stones around here?"

"I'm not exactly sure what I should be looking for, but if you can give me a description of what they look like I'll be more than happy to help you out" Mayu happily agreed to help him out, a soft smile on her face as they started to search a bit further away from our camp area.

"Do you want me and Tanner to take the first watch?" Paul asked me that as I was just beginning to recover a proper breathing rhythm, but the question he posed to me did mean that I would have to start thinking about who was best to keep watch over the night. It possibly was a bit of a paranoid move, but it seriously was going to be horrific if we got ambushed during the night by a mob of angry Alpha.

"Yeah, you and Tanner would be great for the first four hours. After that, I think it would be best to have Amanda and Katra, if they think they can handle it" I made plans to have three groups of people keeping watch over a period of twelve hours in the night cycle, even specifically glancing towards the last two ladies I mentioned to see if they were happy to do that. They were, the both of them widely smiling and nodding in their own individual ways. "Cool, they're all good. Uhh, let's see... Malaki? Would you be able to..."

I trailed off in my words the moment I started to ask the Alpha if he was going to be fine with being in the third batch of people watching in the night, but the moment I actually found him I noticed something was off. He was hurriedly walking away from us (specifically in the opposite direction from where Mayu and Gunner had gone to) while simultaneously holding his nose shut and fanning his shirt like he was overheating in some manner.

"Is... Is your brother alright?" Bobby asked Amanda while she was pulling out her medical supply bag that we had given her, which made her turn her head to see what people were wondering about her brother. Something in his actions must have tipped her off that something was wrong, as she momentarily abandoned her original plan of giving Bobby some first aid, instead coming hurriedly over to me.

"Please, please don't be mad at Malaki" She began her sentence a bit weirdly, already sounding like she was trying to apologise for something he hadn't quite done yet. It was only when I combined her words with his actions that a light-bulb seemed to flicker on in my mind, cluing me in to what was going on with him. "He can't really help when it comes along, so he-

"He's going into his heat, isn't he?" I asked her plainly, and she seemed a little shocked for a moment that I had guessed so quickly what was going on without her spelling it out literally. After a couple of seconds passed by, she realised that I wasn't joking about it and nodded her head to confirm that my guess was correct. I hadn't dealt with many Alpha when they were in their heat, Bryan and Jfred always were very good in keeping themselves properly medicated with suppressants after all, so it was kind of a new experience for me by that point. "Does he take suppressants usually?"

"I mean, he doesn't really like them all that much, but he does take them if he really needs to be around other people" Amanda confirmed that he could take them, which did mean that it was likely going to be safer for everyone if he  _did_ take them right as he was launching into his heat. I followed behind her as she went back to her backpack, before collecting a little pill bottle that no doubt held the suppressants themselves. "Are you coming with me to drop them off?"

"That's the plan" I decided that I was going to overpower my initial fear of getting near an Alpha in their heat, as I did want to become closer friends with Malaki than I already was, and it was going to be impossible to do that if I wanted to keep far away from him. "Besides; he mentioned that he likes guys, so it's going to be fine if you and me go, right?"

"...Alpha heats don't work the same as Beta ones Mila" Connor did feel like he had to say something before I potentially walked onto a figurative landline, gently grabbing my wrist before I walked off. "Beta are the ones who only really get bothered if the person they're interested in walks into the room or general area, not Alpha. Alpha unfortunately can be swayed by any single scent they smell, depending on how bad their heat is, and that goes beyond attraction to gender, class or sexuality"

"We can all come with you as a back-up, that way nothing can really go wrong" Tanner suggested that idea, but almost straight away I felt as if it was a bad idea. Not only would numbers not make any difference to an Alpha, who potentially had the strength necessary to overpower us all even if we had all gone, the increased amount of people could also set off Malaki's no doubt sensitive nose.

"No, let's not do that" I turned it down, which I could tell didn't sit well with Paul, Tanner or Bobby very well. For Paul it made sense of course, he was worried about his Omega girlfriend wandering too close to an Alpha who was in heat (especially after my experience with Tadashi), and the other two naturally still had some semblance of romantic feelings towards me which did make them worry. "We don't want him or us to feel like we're ganging up on him. Malaki has been doing really well to show that he's our friend, and I think we should extend that trust back to him"

"If worst comes to worst, Mila can use her bithids to have him go to sleep for a bit" Connor took my side of the argument despite his earlier warnings about how dangerous Alpha could be, as it seemed to be that Connor really had formed quite a connection with Malaki. "I do want to come with you though, just to make sure he's alright"

With that sorted out, Amanda, Connor and I followed after Malaki, who we could still see not that far away. He was hanging around in a patch of completely empty sand, and it seemed like he was completely distracted with something as he didn't quite hear us walking up behind him.

"Malaki?" Amanda gently spoke up, clearly not trying to startle her brother too much. He did seem to jump a small bit, not entirely expecting us there, but when he turned around and noticed it was the three of us he seemed to relax.

"Oh, thank goodness, it's just you guys" He seemed relieved, especially so when Amanda gently held out the bottle of suppressants towards him. He must have figured out that we knew about his predicament, which caused him to start trying to give reasons for why he hadn't just told us straight away. "Sorry, I thought I had another day or two before my heat began. I usually start in the middle of the Alpha heat week, not the beginning"

The Alpha heat week. I never had a problem with it in the past, as my entire family was comprised of Omega, and the kids at all of my schools had never come to school when it was their heat week. Even now that I was part of the Prevention of Widespread Chaos, it still didn't factor in much because the company was mainly comprised of Beta. I would seriously have to start accounting for the different heat weeks if I was in charge of the away team, especially now that we had each single different class type in the twelve man strong team.

If Malaki started in the heat week for Alpha then, then the following week surely meant that the Beta in our group were going to have that trouble as well. Our team was almost entirely Beta, with only Kevin, Marvin, Malaki and I who didn't fit into that class type, which meant the next week was going to be the most worrying. It meant that either those eight Beta were going to have to get very good at taking suppressants without faltering in what they did, or we were going to have to be long gone out of any sort of Alpha base by the time it swung around.

"It's fine, we were just worried about you" Connor assured Malaki that we weren't punishing him for something as simple as his biological reactions, especially not when every single class type had to deal with it. It seemed the implications of Connor's words didn't completely fly over Malaki's head, as the latter seemed to vaguely look like he was turning red with the attention on him.

"Is there anything we can do for you before you want to return to camp?" I did a final check to make sure that there wasn't anything else we could provide him, as I had often been told in the past that the black pills could often give quite a pounding headache. It seemed as if my question was needed, as Malaki glanced somewhat at the other two who had come with me, before asking something of me.

"...Can I speak to you in private for a bit?" Malaki made sure to let the trio of us know that he was talking about me by having his eyes glued to me, and me alone. While Amanda did look a bit confused on why he didn't want her present, when I glanced at both of my Beta companions they seemed to get the hint that I was asking them to leave for a short while. "It's not going to be long; we'll come back to the camp once these pills kick in"

"Sorry, but I'm probably going to be sticking around not that far away. I do trust you Malaki, but I think Paul would flip his lid if I came back and said that I left Mila on her own with an Alpha who is in their heat" Connor explained that bit to the both of us, which we could understand. It seemed to also imply that Connor knew exactly what was going on between me and Paul, as he specifically chose his name rather than anyone else's. After some quick nods and smiles to reassure him that was fine, he then gently began to pull Amanda along with him. "Come on Amanda, we might want to give Bobby his instant-health vials to help his chest"

"Yeah, he still looks very bruised" Amanda agreed on the fact that Bobby would likely need more than just a single dose more, the two of them talking about that as they started to walk away. "By the way, what is..."

Their words eventually became too garbled for us to understand, both in the fact that they were talking away from us and the distance between them and us. Now with enough privacy to have that talk with Malaki, I simply looked back to the Alpha, who had since gotten back that red colour washing over his face.

"...Ugh, this is going to sound stupid under the circumstances" Malaki mumbled a little bit as he covered his red cheeks, looking a bit embarrassed about even thinking of asking me a certain question. Likely to do with his heat, as I couldn't for the life of me figure out what else he could have been referring to. It was when he kept glancing over at Connor, who was still moving back to the camp slowly, that I got a slight inkling on what he was going to ask. "Do you know if Connor likes guys?"

"Well, I at least know that he likes women because we had dated not long ago" I had to admit that it had never crossed my mind in the past to ask if Connor felt any attraction to his own gender, so I honestly couldn't completely rule it out. "Sorry, I don't actually know if he likes men"

"No, that's alright. I probably should have just asked him directly rather than fishing about with people who know him for longer" He sighed a bit when he realised that it didn't particularly give him any clues, but accepted that if he wanted to know that he would have to ask the Beta himself. He did get interested in something else that I had mentioned inadvertently, which I knew would have come around sooner or later. "Wait, did you say 'had dated'? Not 'are dating him'?"

"I guess that would depend on who you ask" I clicked my tongue as soon as I realised that we had gotten onto this subject. Never in the past had I ever needed or wanted to describe one of my relationships as 'complicated', but this one certainly was at the moment. "It's kind of a mess at the moment. I was dating multiple people from the company - all of which actually came with us on the away team - but while Connor, Bobby and Gunner were kidnapped at that base in the Lomu forest I had decided on who I actually wanted to have as my partner"

"Oh, neat!" Malaki didn't seem to blink at my mention of dating multiple people at one point in time, and it took a couple of seconds of me staring a bit pointedly at him to get the true meaning behind my words. "...Oh. That's right, Paul called you his girlfriend"

"Yeah" I sighed softly, soon joining Malaki in softly looking at both his sister and new friend moving towards the camp at a snail's pace. I truly didn't want to hurt Connor by breaking up with him, but I couldn't live a lie and claim that I didn't know who I wanted to be with. "I haven't really had a moment yet to talk to him about it yet, but I think he deserves to at least hear it come from me"

"That's completely fair" Malaki had obviously spent enough time taking in the effects of the pill he had just swallowed, gently patting me on the shoulder before the both of us took that as a signal to head back over to the camp. He started to walk a little bit faster than me towards the two ahead of us, and for a moment I was considering speeding up to match him before he quickly uttered something to me. "Tell you what, as a thanks for listening to my little problem, I'll help you out"

With that remark, he charged off much faster than I could keep up with ahead of me, fast enough so that he could reach Connor and Amanda. After gently taking his sisters available hand, Malaki seemed to say something to Connor before pointing back over to me behind them. He clearly must have told Connor that I wanted to now have a private conversation with him, as he gently let go of Amanda's wrist, letting the siblings go on without him.

As Connor looked over at me to double-check whether I truly did want to speak to him on his own, I gave him a gentle smile to try and ease my nerves shooting through the roof. Something in my smile must have given away that this was not going to be the most pleasant discussion with him, as soon he returned the same smile... But I could see the sadness in his eyes. He could probably link the puzzle pieces together, even if the resulting picture was not exactly one he had hoped for.

Even with that looming over us, he still was an amazing guy, walking towards me so that we could meet each other halfway. Those two little actions were enough for me to be able to tell that just like Tanner's breakup; this one was going to go just as fine.


	43. What do I do with my heart

The moment Connor and I actually reached each other; there were the first couple of nervous signs passed between us as though we were old high school friends that hadn't seen in each other in years. Fidgeting with a piece of clothing for him, my eyes wandering away from his face now and then to look at something else for myself, you name it. Thankfully, Connor did actually manage to find something to say to me, which made it a lot easier going forward.

"So... Malaki said you wanted to speak privately to me?" Connor asked me that with a tone that screamed awkward feelings, and just his tone alone was enough for me to giggle at him. It was like seeing him fumble around my compliments when we had first met at the company all over again.

"Yeah, I do" I smiled softly at him, letting those feelings of care and platonic love for him overpower my initial nervous feelings. It didn't end up fixing the dilemma of being gentle or simple with him, as of course either side had their downsides. While being simple did mean there was no room for misinterpretation, it could also come across as wholly insensitive, which could turn a simple breakup into an ugly wound that would slowly fester and make leading him in battle a horrid practice. In contrast, being gentle with someone could be seen as patronising them, especially if they just appreciated things being told honestly. "Do you want the simple version of what I want to say, or the long detailed version?"

My words clearly set off some kind of flag inside his mind that gave him a stronger indication of what I was going to be telling him, but to my surprise he didn't look nearly as harrowed as Tanner did when he had figured out the bad news. He did look upset, sure, but it was more along the lines of eventually having to say goodbye to an old friend... Like it was an eventuality, something he had seen coming for a long time.

"I would say go with whichever one you feel like, but you're probably asking me for my opinion  _because_ your preferred method is to be kind to me" Connor laughed a bit, realising how much we were going around in circles because of our desire to be polite to the other's feelings before our own. It did mean that one of us was going to have to renege on our stance (lest we stand there for the rest of the night getting nothing done), and it seemed as if he was throwing me another metaphorical bone by him being the one to relent. "Uh, okay, let's see... How about we start with the simple version, and we can always have the long detailed one if I decide that the simple one isn't good enough?"

"That sounds perfect" I liked the idea very much, as it could potentially get the best of both worlds rather than the singular choices that the other ones seemed to be. This did of course mean that I had to think about what still applied as 'simple' but also wasn't rude. "Hmm... Does this explain it?"

I tried something experimental, fishing around in one of my pockets for the item that I still carried on me. While I also found the glass flower safely wrapped in a soft cloth there, I specifically was looking for the other one. After finally feeling its cold surface on my fingertips, I picked it up. Even in the dark night, Connor and I could still recognise the brightly coloured metal duck that he had gifted me while we were on the Isles of Centica. With my hands carefully wrapped around so that I wouldn't drop it suddenly (not that it would break if I did, it was both sturdy and the sand underneath our feet would have likely cushioned its fall), I held it out towards him.

He looked at it for a little bit, deciphering the message I was trying to tell him without words. It didn't seem to take that long, as soon a slightly bittersweet smile crossed his lips, taking the duck softly from me. He understood perfectly what I was doing, returning the one object he had given me as a sign of his love while we had been dating.

"...Yeah, it explains it" Connor mumbled that response softly, gently inspecting the duck in his hands as though he was seeing if it had gotten damaged in the meantime. There wasn't a single scratch on it, which he seemed conflicted on seeing. On the one hand, it certainly meant that I had been taking good care of it, but on the other hand... I had given him back to him. "I kind of saw this coming"

"Because of how open me and Paul have been?" I figured that must have been the reason that had tipped him off, but I was more than a little surprised when he softly shook his head. "It wasn't?"

"Well, yes, but no... I mean, gah! Let me try again" Connor stumbled over his words, his mind obviously rattled more than just a little bit by this revelation. But despite that surprised emotion, I had yet to see a single sign of a tear escaping his eyes. That did truly hint that he had seen it coming, as he was nowhere near as emotional as Tanner had been. Perhaps he simply was more in control of his emotions? "I had seen the way you and Paul have been more affectionate in public with each other, but that only really told me who of the other four you had chosen on. I... I just kind of always figured that I wasn't going to be the one for you"

There it was once again, the signs of inadequacy that he wore a little bit too much. During our relationship, even in times when I wasn't suggesting anything of the sort, he seemed to somehow he already setting himself up for failure before anything remotely went wrong. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism of his after a particularly nasty breakup he had with a previous lover, but it was another reason for why it likely would have driven me up the wall before long.

"Connor, don't be afraid of loving someone else" I decided that even though me and him weren't going to be a thing any longer, I still wanted to help him overcome his difficulty with trusting himself and his next potential partner. After all, I did care for him immensely, even if it wasn't going to be in the romantic sense. "You deserve the happiest life that someone else can give you, but you can't achieve that if you're constantly handicapping yourself. I know it's not easy, but trust in your partner, alright?"

"...Alright" Connor accepted my words slowly, obviously doing his best to take them on board with him for whatever other relationship he might have in the future. Just like that, it really seemed that I didn't need to go down the long explanation to console him after our breakup, as he and I smiled brightly at each other in appreciation of who the other was. "I'm not exactly sure who else would want to date me besides you, but I'll try to work on it"

"Step one; don't make such disparaging remarks about yourself. It might be a joke, but they still affect your own mind" I gently, but firmly pointed out one particular flaw that he could already start to work on before anyone even remotely came forward to fill in the position of lover for him, to which he sheepishly laughed at. "You're a complete catch Connor, don't let anyone tell you otherwise - especially if it's coming from your own mind. Besides, I already know two people who would jump at the chance to date you"

"Wait, really?" Connor asked me a bit surprised, as he still was in the mind-set that he wasn't desirable to people. And true, I was guessing heavily with one of those two aforementioned people who were interested in him, but I had a strong feeling that those two siblings spent a lot of time caring for him in that base for reasons beyond just casual kindness. "Who are they?"

"Hmm, I think I'll leave that for you to guess who they are" I teased him a little, gently waggling a finger at him at the thought of spilling the beans on which those two people were. Not only would it leave time for Malaki (and possibly Amanda, if my guessing was in the right direction) time to speak to him of their own accord without my interference; it would also act as a great confidence booster for him. "Besides, it'll start making you think some more positive thoughts. There's no way that you should think so badly of yourself when they think the world of you"

I giggled a little more at the slight tint of red seemingly creeping up on his face, leaving him there with a bit of an exaggerated hand wave. My fabulously cheeky exit didn't get to last that long, as soon I could hear him sprint after me. For a moment I thought I would have to be fending off further questions from him about who they were, but the topic didn't seem to be brought up again by him, respecting whoever they were. He did have one thing to say to me, solidifying our close platonic relationship.

"Mila, thanks for dating me for the short while that you did. Even though it didn't go where either of us were likely hoping, it still meant a lot to me" Connor momentarily took my available let hand, gently squeezing it to show his sincerity. All I could do was smile at him, enjoying every moment longer that I spent with him. "You're truly one of a kind. I just know that you and Paul are going to be a power couple in this group"

"Thank you Connor, that means a lot to me" I thanked him earnestly, giving back my own little squeeze to his hand. Mine was likely much softer than his, class types always ended up doing that, but his smile widened ever so slightly when I did so, which gave away that he felt it just as much as I had with his. "I'm really glad to have you as a friend"

To my everlasting relief, he wasn't at all hurt by that final remark. If anything, he seemed bolstered by it, more eager than ever to help me out in our long eighteen year mission to prepare for the day to come.

We didn't need to say anything else to each other, comfortably making our way back to camp with things quite happily sorted out between the both of us. I did have a bit of a momentary thought about how I would have wished that Tanner's had gone so easily, but I soon disregarded it because of the simple fact that Tanner and Connor were different people.

"Ah, there you guys are" Paul noticed very quickly that we had returned, as he no doubt had been looking out for us while we were still outside of the camps grounds. So far not much had really changed in our absence, the fire still wasn't lit, Bobby was still not treated and Katra was still doing her best to set up the tents despite her protests that she'd never done it before. Kevin and Marvin quickly joined her to speed things along in case some of us really wanted to just collapse into a sleeping bag and get some rest, but I was getting a little worried by the fact that I couldn't immediately see Gunner and Mayu. "Did you both get things sorted out? You look happy"

He was referring to the fact that Connor and I still were linked by our palms, as well as the much lighter atmosphere that we were radiating. It seemed as if Paul wasn't the only one curious about how it went; as I could spy Tanner and Bobby trying to subtly (it wasn't very subtle to me) listen in.

"Yeah man, we got that sorted out" Connor quite quickly picked up on what Paul was trying to gently insinuate, both men quite cheerful about what was usually a tense subject. Paul of course was delighted to see that it had gone well between us, as he still cared about Connor in the same way that I did, and of course because it would make it completely known that I was well and truly his. He even was completely fine with me and Connor holding hands in such a way, as I had known some Omega in high school who had extremely overprotective partners (forget holding hands with someone who was their friend, they would lose their minds if someone even glanced at another person). "It was a pretty chill breakup, all things considered"

The word 'breakup' seemed to act as if it was a metaphorical trigger for the two Beta listening in to the conversation, for differing reasons. Tanner somehow looked ashamed, likely being surprised that Connor had managed to not only have a breakup between me and him that resulted in no tears, but especially because we now looked elated at reinforcing our friendship with each other. Bobby, well... He almost seemed to jump a bit where he sat, suddenly averting his eyes and all of his attention elsewhere like had been stung. In a way, both of them looked like they regretted listening in at all.

"I don't quite like how we've split into several different directions right now, it means that we're going to be slow at actually getting set up" I decided to turn my attention back to properly setting up our camp, as there was no way we were going to be done in the hour if we were so disorganised. Paul and Connor both seemed ready to listen to whatever orders I would dish out, so I got to work. "If everyone besides Bobby and Amanda could focus on setting up the tents, I'll head out to give Gunner and Mayu a bit of a hand. If you happen to be done with the tents before I'm back with those two, start setting up people's sleeping bags and deciding on who sleeps in what tent"

"You don't want someone else to come with you lovely?" Katra managed to hear what I was saying to the entire group, sticking herself up out of the mess of a tent that she was attempting to set up for a moment. It looked a little comical for her, the way her usually perfect platinum blonde hair was frazzled and the way she looked like she was done wrestling a bear, that I giggled as my very first response to her question.

"That's alright, I'm kind of hoping to catch some private time with Gunner anyway" I eventually found my words once she fixed her hair, and the hints hanging around in the air clued the others into why exactly I was hoping to find Gunner. If they could link together two different things (namely that I had broken up with Connor, quite clearly still seemed to be with Paul), then it was pretty obvious to those who knew about my romantic history. "Paul, keep a bit of an eye on the perimeter just in case for me"

"Yes ma'am" Paul gave me a small salute and a chipper smile as I moved out of the camp in the direction that we had last seen Gunner and Mayu head out towards, the feeling of being called a name such as ma'am leaving me a bit conflicted. After all, I was always the one used to calling others 'sir' and 'ma'am', that actually being addressed as such myself left me wanting to tell them that it was unnecessary.

With everyone else sounding like they were getting more into their work, I got to work on my side of things. While Gunner and Mayu certainly weren't easy to spot outside of our camp, I could soon see them grabbing a bunch of rocks around the corner of the rock outcropping that we were sheltering against.

"Ah, there you guys are" I decided to announce my presence before I gave either of them a fright, them turning to me with distinct orange looking stones in their arms.

Fire stones I believe they were called; they were a specific type of stone that existed only on our planet of Alfu and specifically in the Gafi desert. Because of the lack of trees or kindling, they were the next best thing to use to start a fire because of the simple fact that they burned for long periods of time as though they were charcoal. But they were more than just long burning, the millions of cracks over their surface often spat out flames as they burnt, which meant that they often could be stuck on the end of a long stick and act as a makeshift torch.

"Hey Mila, have you come to help us get more of these? A lot of them have come tumbling off the top of the rocks here" Mayu gestured to the literal armful of fire stones that she was carrying, the orange dust from them even rubbing a little against her bright white shirt. I wasn't sure if the dust stained really badly, but here I was hoping that they didn't, because she truly did look good in white.

"I was actually meaning to come and talk to Gunner for a moment alone, but I can probably also help out with carrying some stones in the process" I explained in the most nonchalant way possible that I could find, but both Mayu and Gunner could see from far away what I was aiming for long before I explained anything. Mayu herself giggled and mumbled under her breath about something being 'scandalous', but Gunner's face had blanched several degrees. Something about the current situation seemed to flick something in his mind, and he didn't like it. It was only when Mayu turned her head to look at Gunner that she saw it too, and her upbeat demeanour seemed to wash away the moment she saw him worried. "Mayu, I'm sorry, but I really need to do this now rather than later"

"Oh, okay" She said, but something in her voice seemed to say that she was figuring out quite quickly that things were not going to be that wonderful once she left. "Give a yell if you guys need me, okay?"

Gunner ever so quietly responded with a very meek 'sure' to her question, which was at the very least what she needed to hear to give us that privacy. As though she was afraid of hearing something that she wasn't really supposed to, she dashed off as fast as she could really manage with those stones in her arms, but I appreciated the fact that she was truly respecting our desire to not be listened in on.

Even before I could say anything to him, it was quite obvious that he could see what was happening. I couldn't even begin to really form my thoughts in my mind once I could see the tears welling up in his eyes, threatening to blow over if I even said anything.  But even though I could see that it would hurt, I had to say something.

"You know what I'm going to say, don't you?" I asked him that softly, and the immediate response from him was a shaky nod. True to what I had expected, me speaking was the final straw that broke the emotional dam holding back his tears, which began the waterworks. With a gentle exhale, I moved myself forward until I could gently hug him, despite the orange dust rubbing from his orange rocks rubbing off a little onto my own shirt. Soon I could hear those same rocks being dropped unceremoniously on the ground - luckily missing both of our feet entirely - before his arms did the same as mine by wrapping tightly around my chest. "You're going to be alright Gunner, I promise"

He didn't really give a response to that statement, still sobbing softly into my shoulder taking up all of his effort in that moment. But I knew that emotions, no matter how strong they felt in the moment, were definitely things that came in waves. I let him ride out the heightened emotions, easing him through them by gently patting the spot between his shoulder blades on his back until they died down for the time being. Once he had that clarity back to let his mind and body do as he wanted it, he softly mentioned one thing into the crook of my neck.

"...Do you remember that flower we found on the Isles?" Came the singular question from me, and I immediately hummed an affirmative tone to him to answer that I did still remembered it. Part of me was of course wondering why he chose now of all times to bring it up, which made me think more intently back to that time. It wasn't likely to do with what I had personally seen via the flower's odd vision powers, so it must have had something to do with what he had seen. It was right when I was remembering what he had said to me that something seemed to click in my mind.

_"I wasn't in your life anymore, and it wasn't really my choice"_

Finally that sentence made sense as I thought over it again, thinking less along the lines of it being literal and more metaphorical in nature. He hadn't seen his own death far into the future, no... He had seen this exact moment in time where I had broken up with him. By 'not being in my life anymore' he meant that I had chosen to not pick him as my romantic partner, with the latter end of the sentence of course spelling out that it had been me to land the final blow on our relationship, not him.

So, in an ironic twist of events, he had literally seen the breakup coming for a long time. Not like Connor, who had a feeling in his body and soul that it was going to happen, but a literal meaning to 'seeing it coming'.

"Oh my god, so that's why you seemed so weirdly standoffish after that moment" I started to be able to link the other parts of the puzzle together, especially now that I had a metaphorical map to compare it to. Gunner laughed dryly as he gently pulled his head back from my shoulder, obviously not enjoying too much about hearing how rude he had been to me after the event had happened. "It also explains why you seemed so... Jealous in regards to the others being romantic with me. After all, you had no clue in your mind on exactly  _who_ it was going to be, you just knew that it wasn't you"

Gunner gently pat one of my arms in a clear 'please let go of me' manner, which I did. Obviously he wasn't in the mood for a long standing hug anymore, and part of me felt that he wouldn't have appreciated the same remark I had said to Connor about how he was an amazing friend.

"It's alright if you want to head back to camp without me, I'm probably not that wonderful to be around right now" Gunner sighed heavily, bending down to pick up the fire stones he had dropped before. Even without him asking me to help him, I already bent down and started to help him collect them. Because of that action, he seemed to look unsure at me, as though he was trying to decipher why I would still be so kind to him after our somewhat less than stellar breakup. "...Seriously, I won't blame you"

"You're my friend Gunner, helping others through their bad times is what good friends do" I assured him that I was perfectly fine being around him, and true to what I had expected, Gunner looked a little hurt by my remark about him being a friend. He did put on his big-boy pants a moment later, seemingly shaking away the notion that he had any right to be truly hurt by that remark. "And if you're worried about someone making remarks about you looking down, I'll shoot a vial of bithids into them"

"What are you planning to do if Kevin is the person to point it out? He's an Omega" Gunner pointed out that my bithids wouldn't work on my own class type, which I knew quite well. Heck, I didn't even know if it worked on Beta for that matter. But telling him that I was quite certain that Kevin wouldn't do that to him wouldn't really help, so I found something else to solve the "problem".

"Then I'll get Paul to beat him up for me"

That remark of mine was out there enough that Gunner laughed at it, obviously finding both the idea that I could twist Paul completely around my finger and the image of Kevin being chased by an irate Paul to be absolutely hilarious (especially when combined with the fact that Paul often skimped on our old exercise program). Laughter truly was the best medicine for him, as that short burst of laughter was enough to not only put a smile on his face, but to set his mind at ease.

The world wasn't falling apart, we weren't completely gone in terms of preparing for the Alpha army, and most importantly; I still cared for him. Just like I knew it would be, he now was settling himself into the new normal of being one of my closest friends. We were fine.


	44. Died in Your Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A character doesn't take a breakup well in this chapter for a bit, be aware in case you have difficulties with themes like that

We returned to camp not much later than that, carrying enough fire stones in our collective arms that neither Gunner nor Mayu would have to head back out and gather more before we set off the following morning. Paul looked over at us, but seemingly decided to not say anything. Perhaps it was the redness of Gunner's eyes that ultimately made him decide not to go ahead and ask us about it, trusting that we were grown up enough to handle it ourselves.

"Sweaty hug time!"

"Hey! Get off me!"

Kevin didn't quite get the memo as usual (or perhaps he did, and that was why he chose that moment to strike anyway), leaping upon Gunner the moment he was within hugging distance. While Gunner did protest lightly, he was laughing about it, so it actually perfectly fine for the oldest brother to do that. Marvin soon joined in with his usual addition of trying to drag his older brother off Gunner, so everyone was well and truly focusing on the weird comedy trio that they were being.

With that extra time, I inspected what had taken place in my relatively short absence. With everyone finally working on the tents together, all three of our tents were finally set up, with a little note attached to each one describing who was supposed to be staying in what tent.

On the far left it was written that Malaki, Connor, Amanda and Bobby were staying together, which made sense as the two blonde Beta got along well enough with Malaki to be comfortable sleeping in the same tent as him despite his possible weird suppressant complications, and Bobby likely had to stick close to Amanda because she was acting as our main first aider.

In the middle tent, it said that Katra, Mayu, Gunner and Tanner were going to be staying in that one, while Marvin, Kevin, myself and Paul were going to be staying in the one on the far right. I had no clear objections to any of them (especially not when I realised that Paul was going to be staying in the same tent as I was, it made me feel safe and happy), so that meant that the tents and sleeping arrangements were all sorted.

Mayu had taken it upon herself to begin trying to light the fire in the middle of our camp, with Connor and Tanner lending her a hand to give tips on how to start it. Only after a couple of seconds of me looking in their direction did Mayu manage to strike the flint that she had been given correctly, which sparked the fire stones in the pit into life with a proud  _whoosh._ The trio over there gave a little cheer once they saw that it was going, both men congratulating the girl with them not long afterwards, as apparently it was her first ever time using fire stones or a flint.

With the fire and tents sorted, that left just the task of first aid in my mental to-do list, and I easily found Amanda back with Bobby. It didn't seem like she had managed to do her allotted first aid yet, so I moved in towards them to see if I could help in any manner.

"...know it hurts, but these instant-health vials are going to get you up and running perfectly" Amanda apparently was trying her hardest to convince Bobby to let her use said vials on his chest, but Bobby was seemingly not agreeing with the plan. "The needle looks big, I get it, but if we don't use it now then we're going to run into the situation where your blood is going to congeal in those bruises. Trust me, those hurt a lot more than the immediate prick of these things"

"I didn't know that your talent was first aid Amanda" I once again guessed something based on what she was saying, her turning her head to greet me along with Bobby. It seemed as if I was right once again, as she giggled a little in embarrassment as if to say 'was it that obvious?'.

"Well, it's not quite on the level of doctors, as my talent focuses more on immediate first aid. Like the front line people who are first on the scene, and less about long term effects of diseases and wounds" Amanda explained in a bit more exact detail what her talent was about, as of course with broad topics such as first aid of course her talent would have focused more heavily on one side of it rather than a myriad of everything in that field. "That being said, I do read up about various things. I learned about the congealing blood thing when my brother got into a fight and got a nasty bruise"

"Regardless, it sounds like you know what you're talking about. Which means that Bobby should definitely be listening to you" I pointedly spoke to the stubborn Beta sitting across from her, and I could hear the monumentous effort that Bobby had to put in just to sigh at my remark. With great reluctance, he eventually started to bring up his arms to carefully peel his shirt away from his chest so that we would be able to see where to aim. "Do you need help Bobby?"

"No... I got it" Bobby immediately refused my offer of assistance, as though he didn't like the idea of me touching him. It possibly came from the fact he could see that I had broken up with both Connor and Gunner, which meant that he was very hesitant what that meant in regards to himself... Especially after he noticed that I wasn't making that same split with Paul.

Even though it took much longer for him to pull the shirt off than it would have been with either myself or Amanda's help, we didn't interrupt him or take over from him without his permission. We could understand in a way that he wanted to have some semblance of autonomy, especially after everything had to be done for him since he had been rescued. When the shirt eventually did come off, it was still very purple all over his chest. It looked... Grisly, like someone had decided to paint his chest in the greenish purple colour of burst blood underneath the surface.

"...Didn't we already give you some instant-health vials on the flight back to the company?" I asked him, completely shocked that the six or so vials that he had been given hadn't fixed anything. There was absolutely no change since I had first laid eyes on the damage that those Alpha had done to him, which just spelled out how badly he had been hurt in that time.

"They did" Bobby affirmed that Tanner, Katra and Malaki weren't just messing about when they had given him those, but the grimace on his face told me that the memory wasn't a pleasant one. "The injuries to my chest were apparently so severe that those six on the Banshee weren't fixing any muscle or skin bruising, but putting my ribs back in place and repairing them"

I had to struggle to not shiver in utter disgust at the thought of my own ribs moving around inside my body without my permission. With such a horrific first experience with an instant-health vial, it did make sense that Bobby was now extremely hesitant to have them be used on him again.

"I'm so sorry that was your first experience with these" Amanda was saying exactly what I was thinking, gently holding the reluctant Beta's hand to try and reassure him that such an experience was a rarity, not the norm. "Most people have one of these when they're young, and they're actually really comforting. All they do is speed up the body's metabolism so that the body fixes itself faster, and they generally also have something in them that releases endorphins to ease the process"

"...Endorphins?" Bobby didn't know what that word meant, and luckily I was there to help back Amanda up. My father had used an instant-health vial on me when I was very little when I came off a bike and skinned my knee quite badly, so I already knew how they worked because of what he had told me.

"They're essentially the 'happy' feeling inside your body. That moment when you're in bliss after eating some really good food or that feeling you get after exercising, those are endorphins" I explained it to him, and slowly I could see that both my words and Amanda's were slowly bringing him around to the idea of using them. "They also help block those feelings of pain, which is why they're used in the vials"

"How about this, you can hold onto Mila's hands while I do everything? You can squeeze her hands whenever you're feeling scared" Amanda offered him that deal, gently bring the hand that she was holding over to me so that I could take over for it. I had to admit, I was a little nervous about that idea, as Bobby was of course a lot stronger than me... But I was more than happy to provide that for him when he softly nodded his head in acceptance. "Good. Now, I'm first going to gently feel around your chest and back to see if there are any more ribs that need to be repaired. That way, we at least will know in advance if they're going to do that"

After getting a quick nod of the head from Bobby, Amanda gently started to run her fingers over his chest in several areas to feel for his ribs. There were several moments where it was clear that she pushed down a little too hard, as Bobby squeezed my hands several times as she was doing so, but soon she moved around to his back where there weren't nearly as many bruises.

"Great news, there are no more broken ribs or disconnected bones in your ribcage!" Amanda exaggerated her happiness a little in delivering that news, obviously trying to build up Bobby's confidence before she would bring along the vials. Bobby laughed a bit dryly, mumbling something under his breath about how 'he certainly hoped so, after six of them on the Banshee did weird things'. The tense feeling in his hands returned when she pulled out the very first vial, gently pulling off the cap and showing the gleaming needle on the end of it. "Alright, now I'm going to give you a small countdown so that you can prepare yourself. Three, two... and one"

At the final count, she pushed the needle into his skin and held it there, obviously feeling the way his chest seemed to lock up and tense with the metal embedded in him. After some gentle coaxing from Amanda and I rubbing different parts of his skin (Amanda was going for the area immediately around the needle, while I did my best not to cringe as I rubbed his tight hands), we could see him visibly relax once the red liquid inside the vial slipped into his body, as the endorphins smoothed things over. Like a canvas being cleaned, we could see the area around the needle gently start to lose the purple colour and return to his normal light pink colour, spreading out in a wide circle around the entry point. Even after the needle was removed the healing liquid was doing its work, even fixing up the little needle-mark it had made.

"See? Quick, and you've got a pretty big patch of skin and muscle that's repaired" Amanda gently pressed against the point that she had just repaired, proving that it no longer hurt as much as it did before. Bobby was in awe, even gently pulling back one of his own hands to feel the skin there. It was like it was brand new, no sign of it ever being hurt being present. "You probably only need about three or four more of these and you'll be brand new"

"Thank the lord for instant-health vials" Bobby laughed a little at how easy it had gone compared to how his brain had overplayed it, to which I just smiled at. They certainly were a marvel of technology, helping people out of situations with ease. It sort of made me wonder why on Alfu other solar systems refused to use them, especially considering the worst side effect was that some people liked the high of the endorphins a bit too much.

Like Amanda had predicted, we only needed three more instant-health vials and all of the bruising had disappeared from his skin. Once everything was done, Bobby twisted his chest around a little from his waist, amazed at how easily it had gotten him back on his feet.

"There we go, all done" Amanda obviously had worked quite a bit on her bedside manner, as her strongest suit out of her first aid (in my opinion) was the fact that she was so lovely to people even when they possibly were at their worst. It not only spelled out her saint level patience, but also her immense kindness, reminding me that she had willingly hung around at that Alpha base just to help out people such as Bobby. "I'm going to quickly check on Connor, Mayu and Gunner's bruising on their ankles, just give me a shout if you need anything else"

"Thanks Amanda" I managed to say that before she went away, trying to hide the cheeky smile appearing on my face. Of course she was going to check on Connor, even though he arguably had the best treatment at the base. She probably just couldn't help herself to go help him, as I thought I could see a mile off that she had a soft spot for him.

...Speaking of soft spots, me and Bobby had been left alone together after Amanda had left. Even the way I was sitting on the sand was gently pressing the glass flower in my pocket against my skin, as though my body itself was also trying to give the hint that I wasn't really going to get a better time for it.

"We should probably start on the food" Bobby seemed to notice that the both of us were along together, and as though he was trying to escape what was coming he came up with some reason for him to leave almost immediately. That was a bad sign for what was to come, as trying to tiptoe around the problem was never really going to be a good sign. "I'll-

"Bobby, sit down please" I stopped him before he could escape, and as I expected he froze like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Eventually he seemed to accept that I was going to be very displeased if he did leave, so he sat himself down in the same spot that he had been sitting before. But quite dissimilar to the other three that I had broken up with, he seemed to refuse to look me in the eyes, keeping his hands playing with his trousers than on me. "Do you know what I'm going to say right now?"

"...No" He lied, despite the fact that I knew that he was smart enough to put the pieces together. I sighed, but accepted that I couldn't have a gentle breakup like with Gunner nor have the kind one that I had with Connor. I was going to have to be blunt again, just like with Tanner, to snap him back to reality.

"I'm breaking up with you" I put it as plain as I could manage, paying careful attention to my tone so that he didn't get the idea that I was being vindictive towards him. Sure, I was a little annoyed that he was making this harder than it could have been, but I did still care about him. "I'm sure you've seen how open I've been with Paul, and the fact that I broke up with Connor and Gunner tonight. I decided while you guys were in the Alpha base that I loved Paul enough to want to be in a committed relationship with him"

Silence. That was what greeted me the moment I stopped talking to him, an icy stillness that didn't seem like it was going to leave so soon. I waited patiently to hear what he was going to say in response, see some difference in his expression that showed that he understood what I was saying... And I couldn't see anything.

"...Why?" Was the first word that he dared to speak since the silence, quietly moving his arms from his legs to crossing over his chest. A closed off gesture, one that also screamed that he was going to be so accepting.

Paul clearly must have seen something that was going on between Bobby and myself, as he carefully circled around us until he was standing out of Bobby's vision and in mine. Bobby was still looking at his legs, so he didn't even notice Paul doing so, but I did. After sighing softly, I waved Paul away with a smile that said that I was going to handle it. My boyfriend frowned slightly, being able to clearly see that it was not going well, but did eventually leave to give us back that privacy.

"What do you mean why?" I asked Bobby, as I truly didn't understand what he was asking me. Was he asking how I could be so cruel to breakup with him? Was he focusing on why I chose now of all times to tell him? Was he asking me why I decided on something so important to him while he was being beaten in a foreign base? All of those could have been viable answers, but the actual one was far simpler than that.

"Why Paul?" He asked softly, and it hit home what he was actually trying to ask. He was asking me why I had chosen Paul out of the five of them, which... Oddly enough, was quite a simple question, but none of the other three had asked me such a question. Who knew, perhaps the other three thought my motivations for picking Paul didn't matter, as it certainly wasn't going to make me change my mind by thinking it over further. It was a slight clue towards Bobby's actual motivations, something that didn't really click in my mind until much later.

"Why Paul... Well, okay, I think I can explain that" I initially thought that telling Bobby the truth about why I had picked him would help him get over the truth, so I actually began to think hard about how I was going to explain it in a way that he understood. Because I was trying so hard to think it over, I missed the way his body stiffened again, which would have told me that he didn't  _actually_ want to know. "Uh, let's see. For starters, I liked the fact that he didn't hide things from me. It did actually bother me a lot more than I said about you guys hiding things from me, in regards to both keeping the army secret from me and your, uh... Exaggerated public personas. Paul was the only one who didn't change after the revelation of the army, so I felt more comfortable around him"

"...Oh"

"I also didn't particularly feel any sort of heat coming off him when we were all locked in the isolation room before the trial, nor did I feel like my own body was reacting to his class type when I kissed him later that same night"

"..."

"And as a natural way of things, he's a pretty positive guy. While it doesn't mean that someone has to disregard their emotions of they're feeling sad, I liked the fact that he could lift my spirits anytime I would see him. Him saving me from the Isles of Centica because of his ladybug bracelet also was another good feature of his"

It was then that I decided to look over at him, after realising that he had returned to the stony silence from before. Forget helping him understand what was going on, my entire list of things that I loved about Paul seemed to all act as metaphorical daggers to his heart, him clutching over his heart like he was actually in pain there. Not only that, but he was... Crying. Not a loud bawl like Gunner was getting up to earlier that night, nor sniffling softly like Tanner did during his breakup, just pure and utter silence while tears streamed down his face.

"...I don't understand" When he finally did manage to speak, it was hoarse. It sounded like it was the most difficult thing for him to do, and there was nothing that I could do to fix it beyond changing my mind on who I loved... Which wasn't going to happen. "I showed you everything I had..."

"No Bobby, you showed me what you  _thought_ that I wanted to see" I pointed out the difference in what he thought he had done versus what I had seen him do. Most of the time I had been with him before I had forced the truth out of them was a persona that he had overplayed, while he was constantly lying to my face whenever I asked him about the war. Even our interactions with each other were mainly make-out sessions back then, no real heart to heart feelings like I would have expected from someone who was invested so much in someone. With a bit of a heavy heart, I searched around in my pocket until I found the glass flower, and held it out for him to take from me. "Bobby, I care about you immensely... But I don't love you"

Even as he slowly took the glass flower from me, there still seemed to be that one emotion that clung onto him. Desperation, a sense of bargaining. If I were to describe the breakups I had like the commonly known five stages of grief, then Bobby was firmly stuck between denial and bargaining. I couldn't really be mad at him, as he of course still meant the world to me, but just in another manner than what I thought I had felt before.

"You're sure?" The signs of bargaining in his voice were obvious to me then, and I didn't relent at all. I nodded my head at his question, but it didn't seem to change his mind yet. "What do I need to do to prove that I love you? I'll do whatever you ask"

"...Goodnight Bobby" I quietly wished him well, as I ultimately decided that he wouldn't understand if I kept talking to him. With no further words, I slowly got up, turned around and walked away from him. It was immensely painful for me to do that, as I could feel the heartbreak washing off him with each step that I took away from him.

It was when I neared the campfire, and also Paul, that I could hear that he finally understood. A guttural wail left his throat, startling everyone in the camp minus myself (as of course I could have seen it coming) before the sound of someone's fist hitting rock came immediately afterwards. I only had to pass a glance around at my list of old lovers to see that the wail meant a lot more to them and myself than the others would understand, with Connor looking sorry that his friend was going through this and with Gunner and Tanner having a somber look in their eyes that seemed to understand what he was going through if only at a lesser scale.

"Bobby! I just healed you up, why are you hurting your knuckles?!" Amanda didn't quite understand what was going on beyond the fact that Bobby had hurt himself with the decision to punch something, the blonde Beta quickly zipping over the sand to inspect his hand. "Here, please let me see the damage"

I didn't have the courage to turn around and face him just yet, instead trying to steel my emotions by the fire. Paul could see that I was distressed, coming quickly over to me to embrace me in a hug.

"Hey, you're alright. You didn't do anything wrong" He was already doing his best to console me before I could even say anything, his words doing wonders to calm me. I could feel by the way that his head was moving on one of my shoulders that he was looking at Bobby behind me, as he was his friend as well, which meant that he was likely thinking up ways that he could solve the ticking time bomb that was happening. "I'll handle this"

I considered protesting at the idea of Paul "handling" the situation, but ultimately decided to trust him on it. After letting go of Paul, I watched him stalk his way across the camping ground towards the irate Beta. Several others could feel that something was going to go wrong, but somehow nobody actually dared to get closer, everyone waiting on the outskirts and watching the chaos unfold.

"Bobby, you alright?" Paul asked what would usually be considered a completely harmless question, but the moment Bobby turned his eyes towards him it became quite clear that it was not alright. There was a legitimate bitterness in Bobby's eyes, one that almost seemed to flare up into an actual full blown rage. Amanda was able to look up at the right moment to spot the tense air between the two male Beta, and made the smart decision to retreat back over towards her brother and Connor for safety.

That same uncomfortable silence that had reigned between myself and Bobby seemed to return for those two, but it wasn't an icy one like it had been for me... No, this was one clearly filled with some kind of flame, like it was just waiting for someone to make the first move and devolve into an animalistic fight. Bobby was clearly growling a very low note underneath his breath, while Paul was holding a stance that clearly implied that he was ready in case the other made a move. Usually the latter stood in a very carefree, airy stance with a casual flippant attitude about him, so it certainly was a sight to behold.

"Guys, come on, this isn't how-

"Stop" Kevin quickly halted Marvin from interrupting in what was going on, as the older Omega likely had actually seen a fight break out between Beta in the past. And while we did have an Alpha who could step in if something went haywire, it was best to not jump into the shark pit unless it was absolutely necessary. "Just wait, I think Paul's got this"

With both men still squaring off from one another, I could distinctly smell something floating around in the air between them. While Beta certainly had the weakest scents out of the three class types, the two of them seemed to be turning their own scents up to full blast, perhaps as a last resort to make the other back down. Bobby had one that seemed to punch right into your nostril, something that reminded me vaguely of mint, but the sweeter smell came afterwards, clearly floating off Paul. It was some kind of sweet spice, something that had often floated around in my own kitchen when I cooked; it was star anise.

Shaking my head slightly to not completely get distracted by Paul's scent, it was clear that neither man was going to back down from simply scents happening, so Bobby finally dared to say something to the other.

"Punch me" Bobby managed to growl out past his sharp canines naturally showing, with Paul giving nothing more than a slight head tilt in response, clearly wanting to know what on Alfu the other Beta was talking about. "Right now, I don't trust you above any other stranger to keep her safe in this world. So punch me, and-

Before Bobby could even finish his sentence Paul swung his right fist in a deadly arc directly to the nose of the other Beta standing there, causing Bobby to get flung a bit away from him in a heap on the sand. The girls in our group of course thought it was a bit barbaric, myself included, but each one of us was supported by someone so that we wouldn't step in.

"Mila, you okay?" Marvin quickly tapped me on the shoulder and asked that, to which I wordlessly nodded at. My lack of a verbal response did seem to worry the two Omega brothers a bit, so they both remained close to me just in case the answer were to change very shortly.

Like a flick of a switch, Bobby's scent was completely overshadowed by Paul's, the latter coming to stand over the other one on the ground with a sigh soon escaping his lips. It might have been a bit soon, but I had the feeling that the fight was over with that single punch.

"How about now, you feel better now?" Paul asked him, spelling out that the punch hadn't solely been delivered in a fit of rage. At first the only response that was given was a slight sniffle from Bobby, which made me at first consider that he might have started crying again, but I couldn't spy any tears. Apparently Bobby must have nodded at one point, as Paul offered the Beta a hand, which he took. "Good. We still care about you, you know"

"Yeah, I know" Bobby sighed even deeper than Paul did, eventually managing to stand up because of the latter's help. It soon became obvious that the sniffling wasn't from crying but instead from a bloody nose, as soon a single streak of blood leaked out of Bobby's nose, which he quickly rubbed away with the back of his fist. "Geez man, for a skinny twig of a Beta you swing a mean right hook"

"Sorry, I was actually a bit mad at your remark about me being unable to take care of Mila" Paul laughed a bit at how much Bobby hadn't really seen it coming, and his notes of laughter seemed to be the signal to everyone else that they were allowed to come in now without worry of getting their heads bitten off (both literally and figuratively).

"Fair enough, I probably would have been too in your shoes" Bobby chuckled a small note as well, huffing a little when Amanda rushed in with another vial at the ready to treat his new injuries. His eyes weren't on her for very long, as he paid special attention to me when I moved nearer to check up on him. "Mila... I'm sorry"

I didn't really know what to say to him, instead deciding to gently stand on my tiptoes to hug him. After all, saying stuff such as 'I just want my old Bobby back' and 'Please don't do that again' didn't seem like they were appropriate at the time. There was one true statement in my mind, no matter how clichéd and how often I had said it that day.

"I care about you Bobby" I repeated that once sentence to him as I gently pulled back from him, and if the gentle smile on his face was anything to go by, he understood that now. As much as it was weird, that punch seemed to sort him out... And hey, who was I to say how he handled it as long as I got back the Bobby I cared about.

And just like Paul and I had been the ones to save the day with Bobby to form the away team as a proper little family once again, Kevin once again saved the tense situation with his brand of humour coming to the fore once again.

"Who wants to buy some of the pictures I just took? Genuine pictures of Bobby getting clocked in the face by Paul!"

"Wha- KEVIN!"


	45. Let Me Love You

“Honestly, guys are so violent!” Amanda huffed in our little circle of girls, putting her first aid supplies away in the little satchel that she had packed herself for our away team. The guys weren’t far away themselves, just a little bit further than us towards the tents, but Katra had mentioned that she wanted a moment for us girls to have some ‘alone time’ together. “Who ends a fight by punching someone?!”

“Paul does, apparently” Mayu found it a little bit funny, her gently scribbling something on the notebook that she had brought with her. “Bobby too, as he stopped being aggressive the moment Paul did that”

“Well, he did ask Paul to do it, as much as I honestly don’t get it” Katra did partly defend Paul, as she didn’t really have an invested amount of emotion into either man, being able to step backwards and look at it more logically like Blaire would in the situation. “Speaking of that though, were they fighting over you Mila? You sly minx”

“…Sort of? It’s not the kind of fighting over that you are thinking about, but in a roundabout way they were fighting over me” I decided to answer her cheeky question with a serious answer, so that there wasn’t going to be more lies or secrets being held from our two new girls. All three of them perked up a little with the discussion, obviously enjoying the light-hearted gossip a little more than they originally would have admitted to. “I had broken up with Bobby, and he wasn’t really taking it all that well at the time”

“Wow. First Connor, then Gunner and now Bobby? You really got around” Mayu commented on the fact that I had been dating not just two people, but at least four. I would have thought that she was being disapproving at first, but nothing in her demeanour that seemed to say that she was thinking along those lines.

“Add Tanner to that list, she was dating him as well at around the same time” Katra happily divulged that piece of information like it was no big deal to her, with both Amanda and Mayu softly whistling in amazement of how many of the Beta I had been seeing. “Not Jfred though, he’s only got eyes for Blaire. Bryan and Matthias are also nada, because they’re married with kids… and not Kevin or Marvin”

“Huh, that’s a strange split” Mayu tapped the pencil she was using to draw softly against her chin, thinking a little too hard over the subject (in my opinion, as I didn’t understand what was so interesting about it all). “Do you not like dating your own class type? Kevin and Marvin both seem perfectly single to me”

“I-

“Nah, she likes her guys muscly” Katra giggled naughtily, causing both girls around the campfire to laugh with her while my face was steadily turning red. I wasn’t upset about any of it, but it certainly was a bit embarrassing to notice that my type of guy was very obvious to them.

“But didn’t she choose Paul? He’s not very muscly out of those five” Amanda asked us, turning her head far enough to stare at the eight boys huddled around the tents. Tanner noticed us looking almost immediately, while everyone was too busy with their discussions to really notice. He didn’t say anything just yet, possibly because he wasn’t that worried with just Amanda peering over at them.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. Now that I think about it, why did you end up getting interested in him if he looks skinnier than Marvin?” Katra realised the difference, also joining in with peering. By this point all four of us were looking that way, so this time Tanner was curious enough to pose us a question.

“You ladies alright over there?”

We didn’t respond to his question, just giggling to ourselves as we returned to our little circle of girls, confusing the guys greatly.

“I do have an attraction towards muscly guys, but it’s not the only thing that I like” I confided that piece of information over to the other three sitting around the fire, peeking slightly over towards Paul. He was paying attention to me as well, as our eyes almost immediately locked when I looked at him, with him giving me a little wink to show that he noticed me. “Paul… He just makes me feel happy and safe, and I love the fact that he knows when to be the peppy upbeat guy and when to come back down to Alfu”

“So personality eventually beats muscles for you” Amanda understood what I was trying to say, possibly even explaining it in a way that was easier for the other two to understand. It seemed like the discussion of who I was interested in did seem to make her think about her own preferences, as she cast her own sneaky glance towards the guys again.

I of course couldn’t see exactly who she was looking for, but her eyes did seem to look more towards two men in particular, who were sitting slightly outside of the circle of guys to talk amongst themselves. Malaki, while he was her brother, didn’t seem like a likely target for our previously romantic discussion, so that left the guy that he was talking to… Which wouldn’t you know it, was Connor.

“So, seeing as you did date them though, do you know if… Some of them have a type of person that they’re looking for?” Mayu tried to ask me that question innocently, but I could notice her slight glance towards a particular person herself. The way her eyes were slanted suggested that she was looking towards Gunner, who was busy cleaning his glasses for what seemed to be the millionth time in the dusty desert. “Like… Maybe someone who’s good with their feet?”

“Or, you know, a guy who’s good with his hands?” Amanda tried to also join in, but her specific question was clearly geared more towards Connor. I grinned a little, thinking along the lines of teasing them by only talking about what Kevin and Marvin possibly liked, but that seemed a little cruel – especially considering the fact that I didn’t even have a clue what kind of person those two liked.

“As long as you two aren’t aiming for Tanner, that’s my man!” Katra quite clearly defined who she was going for, waggling one of her sharp pointed nails in the air to show that she wasn’t going to have any competition against her. I just chuckled at her typical attitude, also because I was quite certain that neither girl was trying to go for him.

“Well, I can’t say what they like, as I didn’t really ask them about that. But what I can tell you about is what I’m certain they would _need_ from a prospective partner” I started talking, watching with a bit of a devilish glint in their eyes when I noticed them sitting that little bit forward to listen in to what wisdom I was about to impose on them. “Tanner does have this tendency to take on a bit more guilt in a situation than most would, so he really needs someone who can bring him back down to Alfu and reassure him that he’s doing a perfectly fine job as it is”

“Reassurance is my middle name!” Katra proudly boasted while she showed off her considerable arm muscles for a Beta, making the other two girls giggle loudly. She was completely unconcerned about someone hearing her, as even when some of the guys looked over to see what all the fuss was about she didn’t lower her volume in the slightest.

“Connor doesn’t have much self-confidence, so he needs someone that can understand that he needs more words of encouragement than others” I continued explaining, watching how Amanda absentmindedly was nodding her head along with what I was saying for Connor, and how Mayu waited with her pencil hovering over her notebook like she was just itching to take notes when the man she wanted to hear about came along afterwards. “And Gunner, he puts on this sort of confident persona around people… But I think that the best thing for him would be someone who makes sure that he knows that he doesn’t have to be confident and know everything. Someone who can let him open up, you know?”

Mayu did actually start to gently scribble some of the things that I mentioned, which made Katra curious about what was actually in her notebook to begin with.

“Can I have a peek at what you’re doing there Mayu darling? I’m kind of curious to see if you’re an avid writer” Katra tried to give enough reasons so that Mayu didn’t think that she was just poking her nose into things that she shouldn’t have been doing, but Mayu didn’t seem nearly as closed off as she had first guessed.

“Oh, this? It’s not really writing, more of a drawing. Drawing with pencils is my talent after all, as much as it isn’t really the best thing for fighting” Mayu both explained and showed what she was talking about, flipping around her notebook to show the open page that she had been doodling on. Her skills were absolutely magnificent; all of the light strokes from her pencil which made a very detailed sketch of Gunner; one where he was in the middle of running his hands through his hair in a very satisfying way that I recognised quite easily. “It’s uh… It’s not really all that important”

“It’s beautiful!” Amanda immediately disagreed with how casual and flippant Mayu was being about her own creation, the former even scooting a little closer to take a closer look at how detailed she had managed to make it. “Do you mind if I look at some of the others in here?”

“Sure, it’s just that… Well…”

When Amanda gently took the notebook off the black haired Beta it became obvious that she was embarrassed because the rest of her drawings were all of the same person. The entire notebook was filled with nothing but drawings of Gunner, each one depicting him in a tantalising way such as running his hands through his hair (like the first one we had seen) to fiddling with his clothing or even something as simple as him gently rubbing his arms or neck.

“He is kinda cute, isn’t he?” Katra just smoothed things over by admitting that Gunner certainly wasn’t ugly, Mayu chuckling softly and nodding her head. “Of course, I like my men tall, but everyone’s cute”

“…Especially Connor” I could just barely hear Amanda mutter that to herself, a tiny smile on her face as she tried to hide it from the rest of us behind the notebook that she had acquired from Mayu.

As much as I hadn’t really understood why Katra wanted to have a little ‘girls club’ as she called it, I could then understand as I sat there looking at how happy each individual girl was about their own crush. It was like Blaire had described with me, each person really did light up with such a pleasant demeanour the moment we talked about those special someone’s in our life. It was silly, it was simple… But most of all, it was nice.

“Alright, we should probably impose a bit of a curfew right now, otherwise we might be talking the entire night away” Paul spoke up as he and Tanner stood up out of their circle of guys, stretching a little before the both of them would be watching over us as we slept. “Everyone head off to bed for now, Tanner and I will be taking the first four hours of the night. After us will be Amanda and Katra, right?”

“Yeah, that was the plan” I quite easily took the opening that Paul had made for me to step in to explain what was next, which did of course make me realise that I hadn’t fully decided on who was going to be in the third batch of people keeping watch. “If you and Tanner could extinguish the fire about… Three hours into your watch so that we don’t draw too much attention, that’d be great. I was originally going to have Malaki be after the girls, but because he’s taking his suppressants he might want to have the entire night’s rest”

“I do appreciate that” Malaki thanked me for my decision, as he did look like he was already dealing with the headaches as it was. Immediately after he thanked me he quickly seemed to ask Connor something, the two of them stopping listening for a moment to actually listen to each other. I kept a bit of a loose eye on that, but it didn’t take my entire attention span.

“Bobby and Gunner, could you guys act as the last two keeping watch? I know that you both were always early birds in the company, plus Bobby should be completely healed up by now” I decided on those two solely because I also thought that it was a bit much to expect the Omega brothers in our group to lose four hours of sleep and run along with everyone else like we had been doing that day.

“More than happy to do that as long as someone will wake me up in my tent” Gunner agreed to the plan, as did his fellow team member who was going to be keeping watch with him. And because Katra was in Gunner’s tent just like Amanda was going to be in Bobby’s tent, it made that sort of request real easy. It did mean that Paul would have to go poking around in the wrong tent to wake up Amanda first, but it wasn’t that large of a hurdle compared to literally flipping a Banshee upside down to handle heat seeking missiles.

“Then I guess we’ll be seeing everyone bright and early” Marvin said exactly what I was thinking, gently opening the tent where he, I and Kevin were going to sleeping with the three of us until Paul joined us later.

I followed both of the Omega brothers into the tent, but not before I quickly cast a glance towards Connor and Malaki. Whatever the two of them had been talking about, the both of them were still very relaxed, but there was a slight somber look to Malaki’s eyes and an apologetic one reflected from Connor. After Malaki apologised for something unknown and Connor responded with that it was absolutely no problem, I did have an inkling as to what they were talking about.

Now with the likely knowledge that Connor did not like men, I crawled into the tent after Kevin, who snuck in while I was distracted. Because I was the last one in for the next four hours, it was up to me to zip up the tent from the inside, which seemed to be the kind of message that reminded both brothers that I actually was going to be staying in that same small stretch of space for the entire night.

“Oh shoot bro, we didn’t even think beyond class type” Kevin suddenly realised something that must have passed them by the very first time, putting me with them for the pure reason that we were all Omega and nothing more. “Sorry Mila, we forgot that you might actually feel uncomfortable in a tent with nothing but guys”

“Don’t worry, I trust you guys” I wasn’t as bothered by it as them, simply going about my business by setting up my sleeping bag as the one furthest to the right in the tent. The sleeping bag was certainly bigger than me, it looked twice my size because it was one of those ‘size fits all’ type of sleeping bags… Which was nonsense, as it generally catered for an average Beta who was much larger than I was. Ah well, it wasn’t that big of a deal, more room for me.

“You sure?” Marvin wanted to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t paying lip service towards the both of them, as they were both innocent Omega who thought that being in the same tent as a girl was enough to cause concern.

“Absolutely. If you guys are uncomfortable yourselves, you’re allowed to swap if you want, but I’m sleeping here” I settled myself into my sleeping bag, which was the last thing they apparently needed to be certain that I was going to fine sleeping next to them. That, or they thought it was too awkward for them to try and swap tents with someone this late into the night. It didn’t matter if they did, as I’m quite certain Mayu, Katra and Amanda would have refused on the simple factor that the person they were interested in was in their currents tent (Mayu was in the tent with Gunner, Katra was in that same tent with Tanner, and Amanda wasn’t going to leave the tent that had both her brother and the guy she liked). “Besides, I’m quite certain you two wouldn’t want to invoke Paul’s wrath even if you were evil enough to try something”

“Yeah, he looked kind of scary when he punched Bobby in the face” Marvin agreed with a tiny bit of fear in his voice as he laughed, as he likely had never seen either Beta lose their cool with each other in the past.

“Speaking of that, I still have a photo of it” Kevin pulled out one final picture that he had managed to save from Bobby, as of course his cousin was going to rip the ones that he found earlier up. Kevin proceeded to dangle it in front of my face next to him, but all it did was provide my face with a tiny breeze when he flapped it. “You want it?”

“No thanks, I don’t need a reminder of my boyfriend punching my ex-boyfriend” I teased both brothers about the fact that I had been dating their cousin, the both of them looking a little startled as though they had forgotten that fact momentarily.

“Oh shoot, that’s right; you dated like five of the guys in the team” Marvin laughed again as he settled himself on the other side of his older brother, showing that he definitely had something of his brother in his vocabulary if nothing else. “Talk about a rebel, dating that many people in the P.W.C. under Matthias’ nose”

“Hey, how was Bobby in the sack?” Kevin whispered that question very quietly to me, kind of reminding me of how Katra could softly mutter her own juicy little gossip towards me while Marvin sighed as usual. But unlike Katra, I knew by then that Kevin usually didn’t actually want to know the answer to things that he asked.

“He’s actually very dominant and suave” I quite easily talked about that one piece of information, and I could immediately see from both Kevin and Marvin’s shocked faces that they really hadn’t expected me to answer it. “Pff- You should see your faces! I’m just kidding, I haven’t slept with Bobby”

“Oh, thank goodness” Marvin seemed relieved for some reason, likely not wanting to imagine about how his cousin was around people who he was interested in. The both of them could breathe a sigh of relief, likely thinking that my very first remark was nothing more than me pulling their leg… And hey, who was I to correct them? “Anyway, go to sleep you two”

I giggled, but obliged as best as I could, closing my eyes and trying to drift off to sleep. It wasn’t that easy at first, as it was kind of cramped and we didn’t have that much in terms of a pillow, but we eventually managed to slip into a semi-comfortable sleep.

…For about four hours, when I got woken up by the sound of the zip being softly opened to the tent. I momentarily forgot that it was supposed to be Paul coming back, so I sat up hurriedly and fumbled around for my injector.

“Shh, it’s just me” Paul whispered to me, obviously noticing very quickly that he had startled me awake. He stayed still for a moment longer to see if he had woken up Kevin or Marvin as well, but both brothers didn’t even stir; Marvin still being faced at his side of the tent while Kevin slept with his face directly up to the roof of the tent. “…Sorry, I thought I was being quiet”

“Mmm” I softly mumbled a meaningless noise, essentially affirming that I did hear him but that I was too tired to actually respond or think about what I was going to say. I laid back down next to Kevin, trying to wriggle a little closer to the Omega so that Paul would have extra space to slip into his own sleeping bag when I felt the back of my sleeping bag being gently peeled away from my back. “Hm?”

“Am I allowed to slip into your sleeping bag? It’ll save me digging out my own, and I kind of just want to cuddle close to you” Paul softly asked me, and even my sleep addled mind was able to pick out what he was saying. Forget just allowing it because I was too tired, I really _wanted_ it.

“…Please” I softly requested of him, and I could hear him softly chuckle as he slipped into the bag at my back.

Like I had expected the sleeping bag was wide enough to comfortably fit both he and I, especially considering the fact that he was skinnier than the average Beta and because I was a petite Omega. He was effectively spooning me for the entire time, gently wrapping his hands around my chest as his nose came to rest at the back of my neck; him gently smelling small bits of my own scent.

If I closed my eyes, I also could softly smell a very small bit of the star anise that had followed him around before. With that extra smell acting like a perfume to lull me into sleep, a restful slumber came by much easier than I had expected.


	46. Dusk 'til Dawn

"Eww! Gross relationship shi... I mean stuff" Were the first words to greet me when I woke up the following morning, cluing me in that Kevin and Marvin were slightly more morning people than I was. Not only that, fresh in the morning there was a slight chance that you could catch a more scandalous side of him, if I was hearing his near slip-up of words correctly. I could just barely hear Paul giggle into the back of my neck, a sign that he also had woken up from Kevin's remark, prompting him to act even more cutesy and flirtatious with me by gently rubbing his nose over the crook of my spine. "Yuck! I'm leaving!"

Kevin made it very obvious that he was exaggerating a little, fumbling around excessively before he finally managed to undo the zip on our tent, letting the streaming sun in through the flap. The extra bit of sun was enough to force my sleepy mind awake, making me shift around and wriggle as I stretched my somewhat cramped limbs.

"Don't worry about him; he's just a bit more reserved with romantic interactions than he would give off with some of his remarks" Marvin decided to reassure Paul and I just a little bit in case we actually were worried about keeping our romance under wraps around him, gently tussling my hair to see if he got a reaction. He did get one in fact, one of my hands lazily coming up to slap his hand away, which he laughed softly at. "Haha, good to see that you're both awake. I'll give you guys five more minutes before I'm going to come knocking on the flap to get you guys"

"Mmmyeah..." I gave a garbled response, my tongue not quite matching how awake my brain was. Marvin left the tent easily with the extra room that Kevin had left in his wake, which gave the both of us still in there some room. I was about to get up myself and follow after the younger Omega brother, when the tightly wound arms of Paul stopped me from being able to sit up. "Paul, it's time to get up?"

"Do we have to?" Paul drew out that one sentence, clearly trying to play off that he was too tired to get up immediately, but I knew he had to have been fibbing from the fact that he had been awake enough before to tease Kevin about his shy nature. "We could just snuggle for another five minutes"

"We've got a base to get to, and I'd rather handle it now rather than when they're aware that we're coming" I decided to put on my big girl pants, despite the fact that his prospect of rolling back over and going to sleep again sounded really tempting. It was really hard to keep a stern tone with him, especially so when he purposefully rubbed his beard over a side of my chin, but eventually I was able to gently pull myself upright.

He still clung to me even when I was sat upright, him booing softly into my ear as I giggled at his playful nature. I gently slipped his hands away from around my chest, which seemed to be the final hint that I was truly serious, which made him decide to obey me by then. The moment his hands came away from me and the moment that he opened his eyes it seemed like it was a sudden flick of a switch; gone was the sleepy Paul, replaced by the eagle eye variant of him that I knew very well when we both led the away team on the rescue mission.

"Alright then, let's go"

With that remark made by him, we both exited the tent, seeing that almost everyone else was just as awake as we were. Bobby and Gunner looked a tiny bit tired by then because they had woken up about two hours before their normal time, but all things considered they looked ready to go.

"Anything happen in the night?" I asked the question aloud to the three individual groups of people who were watching, but each individual pair gave a shake of their head.

"No, completely silent beyond the typical noise of the city from the West" Bobby explained that they of course had heard some of the chatter and ruckus coming from the city where our company was, telling me that it had been completely boring for them to keep an eye out during the night. Then again, rather nothing at all than being stormed by a group of irate Alpha. "From the stories that I heard from my cousins Matt, Jfred and Bryan, apparently you couldn't go a single night on Pandora without something weird happening"

"That's not that surprising; Pandora is known for its rampant bandit and wildlife problem" Mayu seemed to know a bit about the other planets in our solar system, and truthfully I had heard similar things about the giant desert planet. "Then again, I've heard of a group there steadily making things better for the population"

"Yeah, Matthias claimed that he knew that group" Tanner chipped in as he helped the rest of the group take down the tents, them coming down in record time compared to how long it had taken to put them up. I supposed it was another sign that humans had a common similarity in the fact that we all were much better at destruction than construction. "It was the leader of that group who foresaw the twenty year deadline - by now eighteen year - of the Alpha army"

"Well, let's just hope that leader got it right" I sighed, turning my head a little bit and being surprised by the giant tower of people in the middle of camp. It was Malaki, Connor and Amanda stacked on top of each other's shoulders, as it was much faster for Malaki to hold both Beta's weight on his shoulders rather than have someone clamber up high to see far into the distance. Not to mention it was far safer than throwing someone up in the air with binoculars, as much as that was a time old tradition for most Alpha and their partners. "Do you see anything from up there Amanda?"

"I do actually!" Amanda was clearly excited by what she could see through those goggles, spotting something far off in the distance that we couldn't see with our untrained eyes. "I think I see the base, it's not camouflaged that well"

"No wonder, it isn't actually illegal on this planet to own your own secret base after all. It's only Zura and New Alkhazar that have a problem with that" Connor mumbled his opinion from underneath Amanda, clearly thinking that it was a bit silly that Alfu law enforcement weren't concerned about the heavily armed Alpha bases all over the planet. "How far away do you think it is Am?"

Amanda very nearly dropped the binoculars at the nickname that Connor spontaneously gave her, her brother loudly giggling at how flustered she looked all of a sudden. She did manage to mumble to both men holding her up that it was likely better for her to get down first, which they happily obliged to.

"It looks like a two day run, if we run at the rate that we did yesterday" Amanda guessed the distance between our current camp and the location she had seen, which meant that we ran as a group much slower than a vehicle could. A vehicle could often cross the desert in a single day if people kept at a regular high speed, and unfortunately with three Omega we were never going to reach that kind of speed. "We could probably reach it in... A single day if we sped up somehow, maybe if some of the Beta carried the Omega?"

"Or even faster if we left all of the running to me!" Malaki excitedly reminded us all that we now actually had an Alpha to speed things up, something which I had to admit was not quite factored into my plans. While it certainly sounded impossible for an average Beta to carry another eleven other people and run tremendously fast, Alpha could do things that seemed almost inhuman to us Omega or Beta. "We should reach there in a couple of hours then"

"Let's try that then" I decided, as I had planned for a week to be gone from the base. Around two days to get there, another two to return, and around three extra if we needed them to do our best work in that base. But cutting down on that amount of time meant that we could get back in a much shorter time, which meant more time for our subsequent task after this one; which was to find a new base that was more secret than our current company building. "How would you like to carry us in that case?"

It was a real puzzle, trying to fit all eleven of us on him despite his grand claims. It wasn't that hard to get Tanner on his back - with Kevin and Marvin on Tanner's back like weird monkey's hitching a ride - and Malaki did his best by scooping up two person per arm despite the fact that Amanda, Mayu, Connor and Bobby looked very cramped indeed there.

"...We're still short four people" Gunner aptly noticed, as he, I, Paul and Katra didn't see any immediate places to clamp on. Tanner already looked uncomfortable as it was looping his arms around Malaki like a glorified necklace (I knew that feeling all to well from the last time I had hitched a ride on Malaki after all), so it wasn't like it was going to be much better for the rest of us if we hung onto the belt loops in his pants or something similar.

"Just hop on my shoulders, I should have enough space for you four there" Malaki knelt down a little so that the four of us could comfortably find a spot on his massive shoulders, amazed when he calmly was able to stand back up without so much as a wobble. With my hands tightly clenched into both Malaki's shirt and Paul right next to me... I honestly could already feel those jitters in my gut already that people often got on roller-coasters. "Everyone got a good grip?"

A nervous affirmation was given by everyone, as we were all certain that this attempt of our was going to end in disaster. Whether it was because someone came tumbling off very quickly or because Malaki would trip from trying to juggle us all, worry was the main thing passing through our minds.

"Okay! Off we go!" Malaki announced his decision to speed off, which I honestly appreciated because it gave me extra time to brace, and off we went. I tightly screwed my eyes shut for a brief second in fright, feeling the way that the air seemed to suddenly rush by me. After about seven seconds of nothing going wrong, other people started to let out noises of wonder and astonishment, including my boyfriend right next to me on Malaki's left shoulder.

"Babe, open your eyes!" Paul excitedly urged me to see the same view as him, which did work because his encouragement gave me that courage to slowly open my eyes once more. It was... Completely wild to behold.

We were surging past several rocks and landmarks that we had identified as far away in the original estimation of distance towards the base, and it truly seemed like we weren't going to run out of energy in our Alpha any time soon. Forget a vehicle, somehow Malaki was faster than any single vehicle I had been in before (except for Paul's vulture, that thing truly could go fast because of his speed demon tendencies), and he was extremely well balanced as he carried us all ahead.

Alpha... They truly were terrifying in a way, both in how easy they made accomplishing things seem, and how easy it could have been for different class types to all work together and make life a truly amazing experience if people could just get along together for once. Sadly, it seemed like that sort of harmony could only work with those people who truly cared to be kind hearted, and we didn't have enough of those in that period of time for it to become a reality.

Amanda in his arms was undoubtedly the most excited, loudly cheering because she had no doubt experienced that sort of rushing feeling in the past. Connor and Paul soon joined her in cheering, as Connor was having the time of his life and Paul loved high speeds. Mayu, Katra, Gunner and I were simply in awe as to how things were happening so smoothly, while Bobby, Kevin and Marvin still looked more than a little scared with how much an Alpha could do with so little effort. Tanner, well... He clearly was impressed.

"Jesus man, leave some ladies for the rest of us!" Tanner called out to the Alpha carrying him on his back, and the reaction was immediate from Malaki; a loud laugh that seemed to say that Tanner and the other guys had nothing to worry about.

"You don't have to worry about that, I like guys!" Malaki quite happily informed everyone of that fact, surprising a number of the men (and some of the ladies) by his different than average sexual orientation. It didn't take long for Malaki to also notice that some of the guys were giving him questioning looks, which made him laugh again and say something else to put their mind at ease. "Oh don't worry; you guys aren't my type either!"

The only guys that didn't react to either announcement were Connor and Paul, the former giggling softly with the reactions from his other friends and the latter just trying to hide a smirk on his face. Paul clearly knew about it because he and I had heard it from the very same person in the past while Connor... Well, I was quite certain he knew for an entirely different reason.

With everyone settled in as much as they could be, Malaki marched on for the next four hours without delay. We did occasionally pull things out of our backpacks to eat and drink (even trying our best to give either to our Alpha without forcing him to stop or choke on them), but for the rest of the time it was completely silent beyond the wind and sand rushing past our ears.

At exactly four hours since we had gotten onto Malaki's shoulders, Amanda tugged sharply on her brother’s shirt to make him stop. He did come quite quickly to a halt, spraying sand in a wide radius in front of us almost like a giant wave, but it was clear that we really did have to stop quickly lest something bad happen.

"There's some kind of tower ahead of us, do you see it?" Amanda gently pointed ahead of us to a funny looking pole a number of metres in front of us, just barely not noticing us with it's sweeping gazes because we were hidden behind a particularly useful sand dune. On top of it was a very old looking kind of security camera, one that only really old military people would use instead of our current technology. Whatever it was, it hadn't seen us yet, so Malaki gently lowered himself down so that everyone could get off him, before our entire collective away team pressed themselves flat into the sand. "I saw it earlier through the binoculars; it's not that far ahead of the base we're going to"

"It might be a really old thermal imaging security camera, as much as it wouldn't really make sense to have that in this really hot desert" I theorised a little on what it might be, as it didn't seem likely that the base was going to station a person to watch the endless sand dunes for the entire day. That and the Alpha had shown in the past that they sometimes were a little slow to think things through. "Gunner, do you still have a fire stone on you?"

"Way ahead of you" Gunner could tell what I wanted him to do in that case, pulling out two different orange fire stones from his backpack. After successfully lighting one on fire, it spurting out fiery flames like intended, he flung that one in the direction of the camera when it's sweeping gaze was facing away from us. When the camera swung back around it didn't lock onto the lit fire stone, calmly continuing on with its job like nothing was happening. After a little bit, Gunner threw another one - this one expressly not lit for comparison - exactly when the camera was sweeping just around our location. The camera froze when it saw the stone, following it flying through the air for a moment, right to the point when it landed in the sand. It kept its eye on that stone for a while longer, as though it was waiting for the stone to move once more... And then calmly returned to its previous job of sweeping the sand dunes. "...Looks like it's motion activated"

"It probably doesn't react to very minor changes either, because otherwise it would constantly be noticing the changes in the sand" I used similar logic to the system we had gotten around in the forest of Lomu, as both locations honestly weren't the best for pinprick differences happening in their security systems. This was once again another point in our advantage, as we could easily get past something like this. "...Hey Katra, aren't our tents expressly coloured to look like sand?"

"Ugh, I know darling, it's an awful colour to put on fabric" Katra huffed, obviously not quite getting where I was going with my question quite yet. "I mean, it looks absolutely ravishing in people's hair, but not on fabric"

Tanner raised a slight eyebrow to that claim, as he had hair colour close to the type of colour that the tents were made in. Connor also had sandy-blonde hair, but he wasn't paying attention to Katra at that point in time, which meant that Katra' s compliment went to exactly the right person.

"...How many would you say we have?" I asked again, hoping that the second question would clue everyone in without me having to talk too much about the plan. After all, we had no clue if there was any kind of listening device attached to the security camera in any way.

"About four, but we're only using three because the third has - like - a giant rip in it" Katra kept going, finally looking like she was getting what I was trying to do only after she was finally done telling me how many of them we have. "...Oooohhh. Okay, yeah, we could sneak under them past the camera"

"We could probably go in teams of three if we use all four tents, rip and all" Paul already started to gather the one out of his backpack, wriggling a little closer towards me in an obvious bid to try and get me in his group of three. "Mila and I can try it out with another person to see how well it works in first instance. We just need a third per-

"Wait" Tanner hurriedly put a hand out in the middle between Paul and I to separate the two of us, clearly thinking it was a bad idea for the both of us to be in a group. For a second it almost seemed to be his slight jealously flaring up again, when my raised eyebrow seemed to clue him in that I was suspicious of his sudden timing. "Oh, uh... It's not because you two are together or anything, it's just because it would be a bad idea to not have the two skinnier people in different groups"

"If Connor, myself, Malaki or Tanner were to be in the same group, our tent wouldn't be big enough to cover everyone" Bobby explained in a little more detail what Tanner was likely thinking of, and truth be told it was a very good reason to make sure that Paul and I didn't remain in the same group. While Kevin and Marvin were certainly Omega, Paul was skinnier than both of them so it meant more for us to be careful to not have everyone just pick whoever.

"Ah, I see. In that case, I'm the smallest, so I'm probably best to go with the biggest guy that we have" I wasn't ashamed to admit that I was more petite than the other girls, so I shifted myself closer to Malaki instead to have him with me. And as much as it might have seemed rude to the others, that meant that I also had to decide who was going in the other groups based on size and height. "Paul is the next skinniest, so he should go with Tanner. Mayu should go with Bobby, and Katra should go with Connor. Anyone else, pick one of the four groups"

"Aye captain" Kevin acknowledged my order, shifting himself over to Mayu and Bobby because he was quite tall. Marvin himself went over towards Katra and Connor, Amanda went with Paul and Tanner because it wasn't wise for her to go with her brother, which meant that Malaki and myself had Gunner join us. "We'll all follow behind you three after you go first"

"So are we crawling forward or wriggling? Crawling's faster, but it's going to make more movement in the camera" Gunner asked me as he slipped the tent over the three of us, the fabric just barely covering us all. Gunner was nervous being on the other side of Malaki (who had to go in the middle, as it would have looked more out of place for a bit of sand to all be bunched on one side and not the other), as his history with Alpha was... Dicey at best, but he powered through his initial disgust to remind himself that Malaki had done nothing but help us so far.

"Wriggling. Don't crawl unless we're past the initial sweeping area" I dictated what we were doing, lifting the fabric up only slightly to see ahead of us. If I made sure to only lift it a little bit, then the camera shouldn't notice us. "Move when I do, let's go"

Both men waited patiently underneath that stuffy fabric for my movement, while I kept watch over the camera. The moment it looked away I wriggled ever so slightly forward, it being made much easier when they moved with me as well. The exact moment I stopped moving they did too, the only movement around us being the slight amount of sand that we had disturbed in the meantime. Another swing, another lot of wriggling, no matter how painfully slow it felt at times.

As much as it felt like we were going at a snail's pace, we were making steady progress before too long. If the sounds of shuffling from behind us were anything to go by, then the group immediately behind us were doing so too. But most importantly that camera hadn't once twitched in our direction, which meant that our plan was going along smoothly.

It likely wasn't going to be easy getting into this base, but I knew I would get it done somehow. Whether those Alpha liked it or not, those suits of theirs were going to go out of commission. And so, I let the gears turn steadily in my head, ready for whatever thing would pop up next in our way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If you'd like to help me earn a living but still make beautiful stories, then please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi!  https://ko-fi.com/destinyxdarkness)


	47. Ode to the Bouncer

Once we were past the initial sweeping area of the camera our trek went a lot faster, inching closer towards the base that we could see in the distance.

Immediately in front of us was the door to the base itself, it being coloured black distinctly apart from the typical sand-like colour rest of the building. On the left of the door seemed to be a scanner for someone to show their face in front of, but it was too far away for any of us to really tell if it reacted automatically to someone or if it had a person watching another camera.

As much as the information we had gotten from the USB was certain that this base contained the suit making factory, none of us in the away team would have likely pegged it as that base simply because of how small it looked on the outside. It was only about a third of the size of the base we had snuck into in the Lomu forest, so it deceptively looked easy in comparison.

Right as myself, Malaki and Gunner were about to declare ourselves close enough to the door and scanner to lift our tent off of us, the door itself hummed into life and seemed to open up.

'"Stop!" I managed to quietly whisper to both men just in the nick of time, the both of them gently dropped their parts of the cloth and remaining completely still. I still had my corner of the tent sticking just that tiny bit up, so I was still able to see that a single large man came out of the door in our direction. Luckily the teams behind us seemed to have either heard or seen the door opening themselves, as their shuffling stopped at around about the same time as we had.

Whoever he was (Alpha or not), he seemed to fiddle with the sides of his face where most people would have their sideburns. With a weird electrical wobble, his face seemed to come off in his hands, revealing another one directly underneath the first layer. Only when I peered a little closer did I realise that he was not carrying his own face anymore, the thing in his hands shifting to look closer to a strange sort of mask, sort of like he had stolen a mannequins face for a brief second. As to why the stranger had come outside and taken their weird mask off, it became obvious when a second later he seemed to dig into his pockets and pull out a small little rectangular box, likely one that contained cigarettes.

"Shit!" The stranger swore a little as he clumsily dropped his mask in the confusion of trying to pull a cigarette out of the box, it dropping right in front of my face in the sand. It looked to be for a moment that he was going to bend down and pick the mask back up, potentially spotting something wrong with the tent we were hiding under, but he seemed to change his mind after a couple of seconds. "...Eh, I'll get it later"

With that, the stranger repositioned himself nearly on top of us - nearly stepping on one of Malaki's hands in the process - effectively trapping the three of us underneath that tent lest we were to suddenly storm out. He hadn't yet felt anything weird with our tent, so we stayed very still as he lit the cigarette in between his lips and started to casually smoke on top of us.

In the seven minutes that he lazily smoked that cigarette, I could feel my eyes drawn to the mask that had been left right in front of my eyes. Of course, with how the stranger was positioned on the top of us it meant that I couldn't ever be sure that he wasn't looking downwards; meaning if I ever was brave enough to reach for it there was a good chance that our cover would have immediately been uncovered. But as I looked between the mask and the scanner, I had a pretty strong inkling in my mind that it was something that we would have needed.

Gunner's eyes bulged tremendously when my hand moved, obviously trying to silently signal to me that it wasn't worth the three of us getting stomped on to retrieve the mask. Even so, I took the chance to zip my hand out quickly to grasp the mask before pulling it underneath the tent; even feeling that Malaki had tensed his muscles in preparation for a fight in case I had been spotted pilfering the item.

...But after another two minutes seemed to pass by, there was absolutely no indication from the person on top of us that I had been seen.

 **"Warning, automatic door scanner will lock itself to all intruders once ten minutes has passed"** The scanner next to the door seemed to warn the stranger that he wouldn't be able to get back in so easily, with it at least giving him a grace period of ten minutes before it would lock him out. It likely was a way to make sure that someone couldn't accidentally lock themselves out of the base by walking out an forgetting the thing they needed to get in, but it also meant that it was a bit dangerous to have if you didn't want potential people sneaking in when people left.  **"When the door is locked, please use your ID Mask to unlock the door as predetermined by your main security officer"**

"Yeah yeah, shut up about it" It seemed to be a common thing that the stranger had heard from the device, as he seemed more irritated than informed by hearing it's common features. Right about then the stranger must have started to seriously look for the mask he had dropped, as there was a brief moment that he spun around in a circle, likely trying to figure out where it was. "...What the heck? Did the wind cover it in sand or something?"

**"Warning, automatic door scanner-**

"Fuck, Linus is going to kill me for losing another mask!" The stranger panicked further, worried that he was going to be unable to find it before he was supposed to go back in. I dropped my corner of the tent; as I had the feeling that he was going to drop down onto his hands and knees to search for the thing, and it got proven to be a good idea as all three of us soon heard a very soft thud in the sand. He started to frantically dig through the sand around us, even sounding like he was throwing more sand on top of us to look for the mask... Before deciding after a little bit that being locked out of the building was more embarassing than reporting to his superior officer that he had misplaced his equipment. "Agh, damn it!"

With that last expletive, the stranger stormed away from us in a huff. A moment later two beeping noises sounded, with the sound of a door opening and closing subsequently being the biggest hint that he had finally retreated and left us alone. With one last beeping sound announcing that the door had locked itself again, we were left alone just like we had been in our trek to the door in the first place. Once the sound of shuffling behind us had started up again, the other three teams of our team returning to the task of even getting to our position, I decided that we couldn't afford to wait for another stranger to come out on their smoke break.

"Alright, let's get inside quickly" I threw off my side of the tent, signalling to either man with me that we didn't have to hide anymore. Not only those two, as the team directly behind us was out of the sweeping area of the camera so they were able to throw theirs off as well. The third team directly behind them were also just out of range, so we just had to wait for the fourth team to arrive. "Did anyone manage to get a look at what this mask looked like while it was on that guy? I was too shocked that he was pulling a face off in the first place to register any sort of features"

"I was the one responsible for looking out of my flap, but sadly I was more focused on what the door was doing" Connor was in the team directly behind ours, holding out his hand to take the machine from my hands, as he was still the handiest out of our team with devices. He had upgraded a stun-baton after all, and that was far more electric than steel and metal that his natural forging talent excelled at. "Did that door say that it needed an ID Mask?"

"Yeah, it did" Gunner could also affirm for our group that Connor had heard the machine correctly, as despite the fact that he hadn't seen anything he could still have heard everything. While he was busy explaining that to us, Paul and Tanner arrived along with Amanda, which really meant that we could get going into the base without having to wait around longer. "Why?"

"...Because ID Masks don't exist in our solar system" Bobby seemed to tell why Connor was confused on the piece of technology being on our planet. Forget it being something from Zura, New Alkhazar or Alfenheim, it was from a completely different solar system, likely one that didn't even have Alpha, Beta and Omega at all. "If I'm not wrong, it's from Gamma 13?"

"That's... A very long way away. We're in Gamma 3" Paul certainly seemed as concerned as everyone else was being at learning that people from another solar system were aiding the Alpha in ours, but I had to admit that it seemed very inconsequential to me. Whether it was because those Alpha had friends from another system or because they had just bought some technology from them, they'd all end up failing in eighteen years’ time when we went to war with them anyway.

"Focus guys, we can talk hypothetical another time" I sharply called them back to the task I had assigned them in first instance, a number of my team stiffening as they tried to derail that train of thought and get back to the original job that we needed to do to get inside. Connor and Bobby even softly apologised for getting everyone off track, the former of those two starting to fiddle softly with it to see if he could figure it out. "How does it work Connor?"

"Uh... I have to admit I don't know as much about something like this, but there seems to be two switches on the side here. Currently it seems to be on a mind-read mode, but since nobody can remember what the mask looked like before it would probably go badly if we tried that" He quickly flicked the other switch once he realised that the current mode for the machine wasn't going to help us, but he seemed to regret choosing that option when a million different little diodes poked out of the mask. "Um... Shoot. The other option is... It's a manual input, I think?"

"A manual input?! This thing has over a billion different things that can be done now on those diodes!" Tanner seemed to think it was incredulous that someone would invent such a system, as for most people it would have taken months to fine tune everything to get it working the way we wanted it to. Luckily, we had a person with us who could help with that. "We'll never get that option done in time"

"Actually, can I look at it?" Mayu asked Connor for the mask, peering over his shoulder at not only the little diodes but the separate colour wheel that appeared on the side of the mask. After she got handed it from our resident forge master, she pulled out the pencil she had been using to draw in her notebook the night before and pushed in one of the diodes. It got pushed in with the exact same colour as the one that had been selected in the colour wheel, which meant that someone would have to get the correct skin tone as well in making the replica. "I did manage to get a look at the guy coming out of the door, so I think I might be able to do this. It's not quite my forte in pencil drawing, but I know I'll be faster than a random stranger"

"Go ahead" I gave her permission to start working, and she immediately sat down on the sand and got to work. Like when I had seen Matthias working with computers, her pencil practically danced across the inside of the mask, only occasionally bringing the tip of her pencil to the side to get another shade of skin colour that she needed.

"Wow Mayu" Gunner certainly seemed amazed, enough so that he actually verbally started to praise her over it. I could see that she was happy about it, her smile and soft glow in her cheeks made that easy to read, but she didn't allow herself to be distracted completely from her task until she was done. "That's so cool"

Only about four minutes later did she seem to be satisfied that she had it correct, carefully slipping the mask over her head to try it out. Almost immediately the mask seemed to adjust itself to her smaller face, before it switched over the exact face that the stranger had with her body changing in some kind of electronic display manner to also imitate the correct form of the person she was imitating. When she stood in front of the scanner, it beeped an affirmative note and proceeded to unlock the door for us. Unfortunately we couldn't celebrate straight away, as the moment we had unlocked it the door seemed to open without any of our collective input.

"Stupid Linus, making me..." The stranger was back, apparently having been told that it wasn't acceptable for him to come back without the mask. At first he was distracted enough that he didn't really notice that the door was already unlocked nor the fact that we were all standing there. Of course, the moment he actually looked up he did notice the problem... And another problem for us was the fact that he definitely looked more like an Alpha up close. "...What the fu-

Tanner ended up panicking a little faster than the rest of us, quickly coming forward and swinging his fist quickly against the Alpha before he could recover his own mind. The punch ended up scrunching up the opponent’s nose with a loud crunching nose, the Alpha soon after falling unconscious and tumbling to the ground unconscious as though his nose was his off-switch.

"Nice work Tanner" I praised Tanner about his quick thinking, only slightly wondering to myself about how he had managed to take out an opponent with a single strike. Beta certainly could attain a strong physical strength if they trained hard, but I had never truly seen a Beta take an Alpha out so quickly without the use of a weapon or other similar item. Even Tanner seemed surprised himself, apparently never having tried such a technique against the stronger class type. "Let's get inside before another one comes along"

"Just goes to show you guys; Alpha may be strong, but we go down all the same" Malaki seemed to find it perfectly normal that the Alpha we had taken out went down just as easy as any other class type, which was a good nod in our favour for when the army attacked. After all, if we could hurt them from a distance then their abundance strength wouldn't be as big of a disadvantage as we thought it would be.

"That and the fact that Tanner has a talent that works really well if he catches someone off guard" Paul quickly filled everyone in, as frankly Tanner was the only person in our group who's Beta talent was unknown to me. Bobby didn't have one as far as we were aware at the time, as much as my mind was still trying to make some kind of link to an idea that I had while I was on the Isles of Centica, but everybody else had at least told me sometime in the past. "He has a knack for king hits, also known as sucker punches"

"It's... Kind of embarrassing if they don't go down in a single hit, because then my swings after the first one are really ineffective" Tanner explained loosely on why he didn't tell many people about his own talent, which I supposed was perfectly fine. After all, Bobby was just as tender about the subject as well (but at the very least he didn't seem to hold it against others if they found their own talent a little embarrassing to mention to others).

The moment we were actually inside the building everyone quietened down remarkably well, as we couldn't go casually having conversations like we were outside. After all, this building was a lot smaller than the forest one, so sound probably travelled much faster through it. Like the forest base, we could only see a single long hallway extend towards the back of the base before it seemed to curve sharply to our left to some unknown destination. There also was a door not far down the hallway on our left as well, but it wasn't accompanied with a sign to tell us what we would find in there.

Before I could give any signals as to what we were going to be doing, Katra gently tapped me on the shoulder to grab my attention. Once she had it, she directed me over to a map that had been hung directly to our left on the wall, detailing the entire base for whomever to peruse. Paul looked like he wanted to slap his forehead in how stupid it was to leave a map on the wall for any random stranger to find, but he stopped himself from doing so because the slap would likely be too loud. That, and one wasn't supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth after all.

I peered closer silently at the map, quickly discovering that there only were three considerably large rooms in the base. The one down the hallway that wasn't signed was in fact their armoury... Which I supposed was slightly smarter than the previous base, as there was no way that having your weapons all the way in the back was any good if you got attacked. But at the same time, it meant that we would have a much easier time of pillaging their supplies and weapons, especially now that Mayu, Connor and I had worked together to get the mask working in our favour.

After taking note of the other two rooms in the building - a room called the mechanical room and another called the control room respectively - I directed everyone in the away team to take out their current weapons and proceed over to the door over on our left to breach it. Gunner, Bobby, Tanner and Paul all pulled out their pistols while Kevin, Marvin and I prepared our injectors, leaving just Malaki to stretch his muscles and Connor to prepare his trusty mallet. Mayu opened to door for us by providing her masked face again, and inside the room we went.


	48. You're Going Down

Unlike the armoury we had encountered in the forest of Lomu, there actually were a number of weapons left behind in their weapon cabinets that were usable beyond a single shot. Even better, there wasn't a single Alpha in that room, possibly because they were all in the control room that was mentioned on the map from before.

The room was very dimly lit, with only a poor single lightbulb in the middle of the room working at all to let us see what we were working with. It was largely empty beyond their weapon cabinets, only bare grey walls besides the two weapon cabinets, which made it feel very empty indeed. We had likely gotten to the base before they could fully use it to its full capabilities, or the Alpha had simply never meant that certain base to be anything more than a skeleton base operation to make those ghastly suits of theirs.

"Four weapons in here ma'am" Bobby reported on the weapons in the cabinets after the door shut behind us, meaning that we would have just a bit of privacy to speak between us before we moved onward. "It looks like we have a shotgun, a grenade launcher, an assault rifle and a heavy pistol"

"I see, those might actually be useful for our team if we were to take them" I was already thinking of pilfering the weapons for my away team, as not only would it mean less weapons for our opponents but it also would mean that the lethality of our own team would increase by a lot. "Just checking, but how many of us actually know how to fire weapons?"

"I never really saw the need to learn how to use them in my old life" Mayu mentioned that she had to be excluded from the list of people who could fire guns, and from the nodding coming from Amanda and Katra it seemed as if every lady besides myself was unable to use them. Kevin, Marvin and myself had basic training in that regards seeing as we were taught to use the injectors (which in its most basic form had similar functions), as well as the four guys currently wielding weapons. Connor showed quite easily that he had training in that regard, being able to pick up the shotgun out of the four weapons and began idly inspecting the weapon as we spoke. Malaki shook his head when I glanced his way, so that gave me the answer that beyond the girls and Malaki that everyone could wield them.

"Mila, am I correct in guessing that you're asking because you want us to take these?" Paul made sure to ask me that question before we got too far along, seemingly putting emphasis on using my actual name rather than a respectful military title.

"Well, yes, that was the plan" I answered him, expecting not much more than his compliance once I said that, but the slight frown marring his features gave the clear impression that he wasn't quite convinced of what I was ordering people to do. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing wrong per se. In fact, it makes sense considering what we're up against" Paul wasn't just confusing me, as others were now beginning to look perplexed at him just as much as I was. His following words did seem to finally spell out for the rest of us what he was thinking, letting us see a glimpse into his mind of what he would have had to face when he had joined the military for a short while. "But you do realise that if we take these weapons, we're going to have to use them at some point. Are you ready to accept the fact that we're going to have to kill others?"

My mind seemed to freeze for a moment with the realisation, as of course it had never crossed my mind before. Killing Tadashi and his guard had rattled me quite a bit when we were forced to do it to survive, and beyond that we had taken quite painstaking efforts to leave our Alpha victims alive in any sort of confrontation with them (that was the intent behind the injectors after all). But if I truly gave the orders to take the weapons from their stash, then there was no way that they could be used in a non-lethal manner against opponents.

I glanced to the people in my twelve strong away team, seeing that the possibility of harming another person did unsettle them a little bit, but once they were looking into my determined eyes they seemed to relax. They trusted me on my judgement of the situation, and would willingly follow whichever decision I would make. And as much as it sounded like a horrible thing to admit, I knew quite quickly which option I was going with.

"It was inevitable, I suppose. Anyone on the side of the Alpha army won't be giving us any mercy, so we're going to have to switch our tactics appropriately if we want to win this war. If someone joined the Alpha army out of a misguided pity, then... Well, I'll properly apologise to them once I'm in heaven" I made my mind up, effectively removing the shackle of 'no killing' that had been put on our group before that point, which was going to help us immeasurably in the eighteen years before the assault on Pandora. "We need the shotgun and grenade launcher for our stronger Beta, so Tanner and Connor would be best with those. The assault rifle would likely be good for Bobby, because he has the bicep muscles to handle the kickback from the weapon and uh... I think the heavy pistol would be best in Gunner's hands"

"Sounds like a plan" Tanner seemed to approve of the way the weapons were handed out, taking the grenade launcher from the weapon rack simply because Connor had effectively called the shotgun as his own weapon. The problem with the weapons only got figured out when the four of them tried to check how many bullets were in the respective weapons... Only to figure out that they couldn't find an ammo clip or place to insert bullets at all. "Uh... I don't think these are normal guns"

"What's wrong with them?" Amanda naturally asked Connor, as it was usually him that could recognise a different model or something unusual in his hands. This time it seemed to be that even he didn't know what was wrong with the weapons, continuously turning over his shotgun to find something that he recognised. It was only when Paul came over again that somebody had an answer to what they were, as his military training meant that he had seen some odd weapons in his time.

"They look like they're from another solar system, just like the ID mask that Mayu is wearing. I think these are from Beta 17, way south in our galaxy" Paul was able to explain what they were, as despite the strange naming system of our entire galaxy, the Beta quadrant was not that far from the Gamma quadrant; where our own solar system was located. "See this slot at the side and the big energy chamber in the gun itself? It shows that this gun doesn't actually fire bullets but an extremely hot bit of plasma that shreds through flesh very well. Even more astounding is the fact that this gun can fire indefinitely, as the heat sink will just overheat and cool down again before letting you use it again"

"Nerd" Gunner teased his friend, which earned him some laughter from his fellow male Beta. Despite the joking, it was clear that the other appreciated the fact they actually knew what they were handling now rather than holding it warily at all points of the day. "Any immediate warnings that we need to know about?"

"Besides not aiming it at your friends? There's the obvious one that these don't have safeties, so be careful when you put it away. Oh! And they can be very hot to the touch if they overheat, so don't burn yourselves" Paul listed the first examples that he could think off immediately, both of which certainly seemed important for anyone to know if they wanted to use similar weapons in the future. The slight worry must have been present on my own face when Paul glanced over towards me, so he made sure to mention other things to cut off that concern before it could impact me in any manner. "But don't worry, they're really expensive to acquire if they're getting them shipped in from Beta 17. The fact that these guys got four of them is already astounding as it is"

"And now we've got them, so that's a whole bunch of money wasted for their army" Katra seemed quite gleeful about our little raid on this part of the base, and everyone had to agree that it was much better that they were in our hands rather than the Alpha we were going to be facing. "So now that we're armed and dangerous in more ways than just our looks, were are we going now?"

"The mechanical room; it's the most likely one to have the suits that are being made" I decided on that course of action, as not only was it the one that was closer according to the map we had seen, but it was also the one we were aiming for in the first place. It was the entire reason we had stormed across the desert in the first place, so it seemed logical to get that one done first out of the two remaining rooms. "If it looks too dangerous, then we can just handle the mechanical room and leave behind the control room. Everyone check that your weapons are ready, and let's head out"

After Tanner, Gunner and Bobby handed over their pistols to the girls (they still didn't know entirely how to use it, but in an emergency it was better that everyone was armed in some manner), we all headed back out into the hallway. No other Alpha had arrived in the meantime, so I directed Connor, Malaki and Bobby towards the front because of their weapons (or fists, in Malaki's case) being best used for close range in case someone came around the corner at the very end of the hallway.

"If you guys can help it, let Malaki do the handling of opponents if it's a solitary person" I instructed the three directly in front of me, with myself being flanked by Paul and Gunner with their pistols. Tanner ended up taking up the rear along with Kevin and Marvin, with everyone else focusing entirely on moving forward. "Knocking someone unconscious might not be entirely silent, but it will be less of a tip-off than a shotgun being fired"

After my final set of instructions we all fell silent again, instead directing our attention to getting to the mechanical room. Bobby showed me a signal that signified that there was nobody coming around the corner, so I returned that signal with one of my own that told them to move around the corner. With the entire group shifting around the corner, we noticed that we were once again going down a hallway, so I gave another signal to move down that one faster so that we could reach the relative safety of the following corner.

"Stupid Hawk, making me go looking for him" We could all hear an Alpha making their way towards us around the corner, with whoever it was being too distracted in their angry grumbling to themselves to really notice our shadows advancing towards the corner. We managed to reach the corner right before the Alpha did, taking him completely by surprise as he rounded the corner. Because of our element of surprise, Malaki was able to thrust out his arms and trap the Alpha's neck in some sort of chokehold as well as covering the offending Alpha's mouth before he could scream out for his allies. "He-MPH!"

Malaki didn't immediately kill him, obviously wondering whether I wanted to interrogate him for information before we moved on. At the time I was more concerned with being spotted too early (as the information about the base was already about as well-known as it could be because of their blatantly obvious map), so I quickly swiped my thumb over my neck in the universal sign for killing someone. While it wasn't his first choice, Malaki didn't hesitate once I ordered it of him, quickly grabbing onto the underside of the Alpha's chin and then harshly twisting his neck sideways and slightly upwards; snapping his neck with a loud cracking noise.

After letting his sister check through the pockets of the Alpha for anything useful, Malaki hoisted the body of the Alpha over his shoulder, as leaving behind a dead body in their corridors was just begging for trouble. Moving on, we once again got the all clear from Bobby that the following corridor was completely empty after the very first Alpha, so we rounded that corner as well.

The final hallway in the base had two doors stationed in it, with the one at the end obviously being the control room by all the bright computers and people being in it. The door on the left hand side of the hallway was the one we wanted however, as that was the one that had to be the mechanical room. Because of the control room doors being mainly made out of glass (for aesthetic purposes perhaps? It didn't seem very practical to me), we all crouched low to the ground before advancing on to the mechanical room. That door was unfortunately made out of simple steel, so I made sure to signal for Connor to go through that one first; as his shotgun would end up being the best for crowd control if there happened to be a lot of Alpha waiting in the room.

Connor peered into the room, deciding very quickly that it wasn't dangerous enough to actually fire his weapon just yet. He opened the door further for the rest of us behind him, and the twelve of us moved in to the darker looking room before we could be spotted by the Alpha in the control room.

The mechanical room was littered with bits of old machinery, even half of an old Viking being stationed at the back of the room to use for spare parts. On either side of the room were two conveyer belts with around eight suits in total being stood upright... But it was clear that a number of them were not suitable for use, as five of those eight were wrapped in bright red tape that labelled the specific suit as being dangerous to use. In the middle of the room, attending to a pile of scrap that they were trying to decipher on how to use, were two people.

It was hard to determine many things about them from behind, as neither of them really turned around to look at us. I even got the impression that they were doing so on purpose, because it was clear that they reacting slightly to our footsteps but still expressly choosing to ignore us... Possibly because they thought that we were simply more Alpha from their base. They didn't even respond to the noise of Malaki dropping the body of the Alpha onto the ground, truly solidyfing that these two were trying to employ the tactic of 'ignore it and eventually the problem will go away'.

The one on the left seemed to be a guy, with medium length blonde hair and a thin frame. He was quite like Kevin and Marvin in a way, being quite tall but not having much muscle on him compared to an Alpha... Or even a Beta, as when I looked closer he seemed to be closer to an Omega than anything else. His friend on the right had much longer brown hair, dipping low enough on his back that I might have even mistaken him for a female if it wasn't for the distinct lack of a chest on him. He too seemed to resemble much more of an Omega - more towards my build than the Omega brothers from our away team - but I couldn't assume that they were going to be friendly simply because of their class type.

"Hands in the air" I warned the two people as I aimed my injector at them (even though those injectors wouldn't do much against them, they likely didn't know that), every other armed person in my away team raising their weapons along with me.

"Eep!" The Omega with the brown hair on the right acted quite docile compared to the Alpha in the base, squeaking softly before shooting his hands into the air like I had told them to do. His friend copied him, the both of them bowing their head as low as they could while still standing in a clearly submissive manner. "Don't shoot, we're not armed!"

"Mila, they've got the same ankle chains on them like Gunner and the others had in the Lomu base" Marvin was able to peer around various bits of machinery towards their feet, and when I did the same with my head a moment later I could also spot the dark grey cuffs keeping them chained to the table. That simple observation - along with their simple compliance to our demands - painted the picture that they weren't people who agreed with the Alpha army; instead more likely being prisoners that had been taken like so many others to do the army's bidding. "This might be premature, but I don't think they are here voluntarily"

"Wait... You guys aren't part of those Alpha, are you?" The guy on the left asked us as he carefully turned his head around, which was the final thing that made me believe that they weren't trying to deceive us. I gave a signal to the others that it was fine for them to lower their weapons, as in the worst case scenario Malaki would still be able to handle them with his superior strength. "Oh thank goodness, you guys actually look like you might be reasonable people"

"Yeah, you could say that. We're trying to fight against the kind of people that have kidnapped you two" Amanda was quite easily able to divulge that information to the both of them, as it wasn't like it was any kind of secret we were trying to keep from everyone. With the reassurance that we were no longer going to empty bullets or shots of plasma into their backs, both guys carefully turned around while trying not to trip over their own chains. They looked quite young, being around my own age or slightly older, but they did look extremely tired... And also seemed like they hadn't slept or showered properly in a very long time since being kidnapped.

"Dang, the blonde one is cute" Malaki clearly didn't care much that the guys looked like they could be doing better, as the blonde taller Omega out of the two certainly seemed to strike his fancy. While it would have funny in a moment of down time, we were in a high stress situation so it was not  _quite_ the right time for such comments.

"Focus Malaki" I reminded him that we were in enemy territory, and he nodded his head before focusing once more.

"Right, my bad"

"We've been in here for... God, I don't even know how long anymore" The guy on the right started to loosely explain how they had gotten there as Malaki moved forward to break the chains off their ankles, both of them flinching quite heavily when it came to be their turn to have the metal removed from around their delicate skin. Unlike the mere days that Gunner, Mayu and Connor had been chained up in Lomu, these guys had been chained up for so long that the skin around their ankles had been blistering, cut and getting infected for such a long time that permanent scars seemed to be ingrained into the skin. Even if Amanda immediately offered them first aid in the form of an instant-health vial, the scars would likely still remain as a ugly reminder of their imprisonment... Which just made me less hesitant to order the death of anyone in that compound who dared to mistreat those two. "My name is Corey, and he's Trent. We used to be the main creators for a tech company called Halo"

"Halo? Geez, I haven't heard that name in months" Bobby, as our company's requisitions officer, likely had dealt with acquiring tech from companies before. Something about their name seemed to spark a memory for him, which filled in the missing links of the story for both men. "It's been gone for over a year now, since their main creators..."

 _'Went missing'_ seemed to be the final words that Bobby didn't quite have the courage to say, as the horrified expressions of Corey and Trent seemed to cut off any importance in that sentence. It seemed as if their claims of not knowing how long they had been in that base was correct, as learning the truth of them being gone for an entire year hit them hard.

"Corey, Trent, I know it's difficult to deal with the sudden things all being told to you at the same time, but we really need to get moving" As much as it was harsh to not give them time to recover straight away, I needed to learn more about how we were going to handle the suit problem in the army. "How many of these things did you make?"

"We made ten of them in the last... Year, I suppose. Two of them were taken out of this base to see if they could be used on their troops, but from what I've heard both suit wearers ended up dying, and they lost the use of those two suits immediately afterward. The other eight are the ones you see here, and five of those have bad enough problems that the Alpha in this place can't wear" Trent was able to remember some of the vague details that had been mentioned in his presence as well as what he had been doing in that room, and it seemed as if the faults in the suits (both the two missing ones and the five in that room) were not just an accidental choice. "As for the mistakes in the suits, Corey and I have been doing those purposefully. The first five batch of our suits were created in the sense that the adrenaline would overload the Alpha's system if they wore it, essentially making it that they would die if they removed the suit"

"That's why one of the two died, in fact" Corey was able to fill in the other parts of the story that Trent was missing, leaving his friend to receive an instant-health vial in his leg to repair as much damage as it could to their legs. "The second batch actually had some extra chemicals added to the green mixture in the suits, which made the Alpha wearing it move a lot slower. We wanted to do the overload option again, but... We were worried that the Alpha would realise that something was up if we did that"

They had been intentionally sabotaging the suits they were making for the army! Honestly, that just made me like the two of them even more, as they were doing their own part to try and slow down the enemy despite their admittedly restricted options. It was something that I could imagine Connor doing as well if he had been stuck making weapons for the army, which just meant that it was another good point in these two guys favour.

"So what do you guys want to do now? I mean, it's obvious that you want to get out of this base, but are you planning on getting revenge or going back to your normal lives?" Malaki asked the two of them, as we weren't going to force the two of them to join our rebellion if they truly didn't want to. We would be no better than the Alpha if we gave them absolutely no choice in the matter, and I would never want to be like those people.

"I'm not sure revenge is the right word, but if you're going to be dealing with the Alpha acting like they own the place then I want in" Trent seemingly had already made up his mind without too much contemplation being necessary, Corey in agreement if the steely look in his eyes was any indication towards how he felt. The both of them seemed to accept that we couldn't just take anybody in our away team if we were going to do well, so he brought out one of his inventions to prove how useful they would be. "Here, as an example of what we can make. This is a electric wavelength shield that can cover an entire team of five, we made it in our spare time while the Alpha weren't constantly monitoring us"

Trent lifted it up and slammed the little round device down onto the ground, the force of it colliding with the floor activating it with a bright flash of light. Immediately the machine sparked a bubble of electricity that safely shielded himself, Corey and Amanda (the latter being close enough because she was still fixing up Corey's ankles), and it really looked like it wasn't going to go down easily. Out of curiosity, Malaki reached out his fingers to the shield, only to repelled by a large sounding  _zap_ to his fingers.

"Ouch!" It seemed to actually hold quite a bit of charge, as Malaki shook his hand up and down like he had been burnt on his fingers, which showed that it had enough to deal with Alpha as well as the weaker class types. Malaki didn't even seem to mind the charge that much, as he gave Trent a charming smile as he made a corny joke about it all. "Electrifying"

Trent chuckled a little, finding the corny joke more endearing than embarrassing, gently kneeling down to retrieve the device. The moment the device came off the ground the bubble of electricity was gone, which showed just how effective it truly was in their hands.

"Honestly, I was already planning on adding you guys to the team" I chuckled a little, effectively telling them that the show wasn't really necessary to get them to join us. I had planned for them to join us anyway with their technological prowess, which was something that our team was lacking (we did not yet have a person like Matthias), so the both of them were more than happy to join us. "With you two, there will be nothing that our away team can't do"

With both Corey and Trent introducing themselves to the rest of the team, there was only one other thing to do in that base; storm the control room. With an electric shield to protect us and weapons that operated without bullets, it was going to be like stealing candy from a group of overconfident, selfish babies.


	49. Pumped Up Kicks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning; A shooting happens which results in several deaths. Please be aware if these themes concern you.

With Corey and Trent in tow, we sabotaged the last remaining working suits in that room, and once that was done we exited the mechanical room. Looking down the hallway, it was obvious that the Alpha in the control room still hadn't noticed us, still staring at their bright screens at the back of the room. I briefly considered what option was better; to leave without disturbing them or to handle them long before the assault in eighteen years’ time... And decided on the latter when my eyes happened to notice the large scars still adorning Corey and Trent's ankles.

I signalled for the group to move toward the control room, taking specific care to direct the people wielding proper working guns (as well as taking care to only direct those who were confident in handling them) towards the front to ensure that we wouldn't be having an unfortunate case of friendly fire. Before we even opened the door, Paul reloaded his pistol with a full clip of ammo, which then reminded the other four armed people to reload their guns. It was a bit embarrassing for them to remember that their new weapons had _no_ need for new ammo clips, which meant that they awkwardly had to inform me with their signals that they were ready to go despite doing nothing new with their weapons.

If there was one thing I could say about the Alpha running about that base was that they had gotten the right kind of doors, as when Gunner opened the glass doors to let us in they swung open without a single creak. Even our footsteps didn't seem to rustle the attention of the nine Alpha in the control room, either believing it to be impossible that their base could be entered without being a part of their team or because they thought that we were the two missing members of their team.

"I wish we could have been part of the team to take over the Helicarrier yesterday rather than just be here to make those suits work" One of the Alpha tapping various codes into the main computer in front of him started to talk to one of the Alpha directly behind him, his eyes luckily still kept to his task at hand rather than turning his shoulder to talk to his comrade. A picture appeared on the screen of the computer, one of a gigantic sort of ship that carried a lot of smaller fighter ships in and on top of it, likely the one that the Alpha was mentioning. "It's apparently an exact replica of the one in Omnicron 2!"

"They wouldn't have needed our help even if it was just a team of thirty unlike the three hundred that took it" The Alpha that the other one was talking to seemed to be the leader of the base, as he chastised the one that was complaining to him. By the time he was halfway through his own sentence we were all set up to unleash a barrage of plasma and metal against them, but I didn't want to give the signal just yet. Who knew, perhaps the Alpha would proceed to run their mouth a bit longer, giving more information just like the people at the previous base had done when I was hiding in the vents. "It was only manned by Beta, as though that backwater class type deserves to serve in the military"

I could immediately see Gunner, Bobby, Tanner and Connor bristle angrily at the words they were hearing from the Alpha in front of them, a number of those four even looking like they were considering firing their weapon without my approval. I made especially sure to sternly hold up the signal to hold their fire, and they begrudgingly stopped their fingers from wandering towards the trigger. Paul was the only calm one in the five strong firing squad, his eyes slanted to keep his entire attention on my signal, only occasionally glancing over to the Alpha to make sure that they didn't turn around on us.

"Yeah, I heard about that! The guys who took it over had the idea to just throw the Beta overboard and watch them plummet back down to Alfu instead of shooting them!" Another Alpha seemed to join in excitedly with the discussion that they were having, and it was right about then that I realised that we weren't going to get any more information from these guys. I wasn't planning on standing there until the rest of time to hear their horrific descriptions of their conquests. "Man, you should have seen the holovids they took! They tried to flap their fucking arms like wings, it was so funny!"

"Fire at will" I gave the command that the five were anxiously waiting for, releasing the restriction on them. Not only that, as my words were enough to distract a number of the Alpha, turning their heads around finally to realise that we were in the room, but their reaction time (as much as Alpha claimed they were faster than other class types) was pitifully slow compared to the guys firing upon them.

The very first shot came from Connor, his shotgun opening with such a volatile blast of concentrated plasma, decimating not only three computers in the room but the heads of two of the Alpha who happened to be sitting behind those exact computers. That shotgun blast seemed to be as loud as a fully loaded cannon going off in the room, but it was nowhere near as bad as when the others joined in.

The constant hammering of the assault rifle in Bobby's hands seemed to stop most of the Alpha in their track's, long before they could even turn around and get up from their chairs. The heavy crack from the heavy pistol from Gunner seemed to punch through most of the other noise, emphasizing the fact that the gun certainly was dangerous even though it was the smallest from the armoury. Paul was doing very simple crowd control, picking off the Alpha that managed to stray from the main horde in the middle while Tanner took on the task of handling the Alpha that were beginning to converge towards the centre of the room, firing a single blast into the five that gathered there. Every single weapon seemed to have its own distinct noise, that if you listened intently you could eventually switch between each sound if you wanted to, the combined mixture of it all creating a deadly symphony.

After three shots from Tanner and Connor's weapons, six shots from Gunner, ten from Paul and a whopping fifty from Bobby, all of our weapons were spent. All four heat sink weapons launched into their overheated mode, opening several venting ports and violently expelling boiling steam from all sides. It was like an extremely exaggerated version of the term 'a smoking gun', as the steam eventually drifted upwards from their hands and disappeared in a mist of moisture onto the ceiling of the room we were in. After the steam cleared, and the weapons returned to their normal functions, we looked out upon the utter demolition that remained.

Only the main computer was left intact, every other one being included in the crossfire of weapons. Because they were also the older version of computers, the majority of them were not attached to a holoscreen but an actual glass and electronic computer... But each one of the ones around the computer had been shot to pieces, the majority of their components and shiny new glass being strewn about the floor. The walls were even worse, as not only were there plenty of plasma holes punched into the structure all around, blood stains painted a grisly picture of what had happened in that room. Some of those blood stains seemed to reach high enough to splatter on the ceiling themselves. Even if we were now ignoring the nine blown apart corpses in the room, the red life seeping out of their bodies threatened to paint the feet of whoever dared to walk forward in their bright shine.

"...Jesus" Amanda said the single word, still finding it a little hard to completely shrug off what we had done. Nobody really spoke up to say that they thought it was a mistake to do so, it was far too late to expect the enemy to extend mercy towards us after all, but it was another thing to watch a room turn into a red puddle.

"May the lord decide upon their fates... And ours, once this is all over" I uttered a small prayer for the dead in that room, as I knew that they would receive justice when they were judged in the afterlife. The second prayer was also necessary, for the hope that our actions would be seen as a necessary evil to defend the solar system when nobody else would. When I opened my eyes I noticed that several of the people in the away team had bowed their head in agreement to the prayer, some also uttering 'amen' softly under their breaths. "Now, let's get to that console, find what we need and get out of this graveyard. Corey, Trent, I might need your guys help"

"Take Trent" Corey suggested to only take his blonde haired friend, and for good reason, as they knew each other better than I could guess from the outside. "I'm usually the one who makes the devices, Trent really improves them, so it's more likely that he can get you what you need"

"Gunner and I are going to be checking over the corpses, mainly making sure that one of these guys isn't pretending to be dead" Paul watched for our backs, even purposefully aiming his pistol at the nearest Alpha to him in case the one pretending were to get up and charge at us despite his injuries. "Do you want people to be checking over their bodies for items that we might want to use?"

"I do, yes. Who's comfortable with doing that?" I made sure to ask that before ordering someone to do it, as of course it wouldn't do to traumatise people if they didn't want to touch a corpse. Everyone raised their hands, but I did notice that there were some that did it more hesitantly than others. "Kevin, Marvin and Katra, you guys please check over the bodies. If you find more ID Masks, please destroy them; we won't need more circulating around in our solar system besides the one that Mayu is wearing"

"Oh, so you're not a guy?" Trent soon realised that Mayu wasn't actually appearing as she normally would, and she nodded her head before removing the mask from her face. The difference was instantly obvious, changing her from an average height for an Alpha to her smaller version, as well as changing her appearance from a guy over to her actual long black locks. Trent seemed to giggle softly, finding it a little funny by how different she looked to what the mask had changed her into "You actually were kind of cute in that other form"

That remark didn't pass by Malaki, who seemed to be internalising what kind of hints he could from that remark. While Alpha certainly didn't think as clearly as Omega did, it seemed to be that he figured out what the blonde haired Omega was trying to say, smiling a little to himself as he busied himself with helping Gunner and Paul.

"So, what do you want me to find on here?" Trent asked me as he carefully stepped around the corpses in his way to the main computer terminal, being especially careful to avoid damaging the screen or main device any further than it had already been. There was a tiny bit of glass missing from one side of the display, clearly from a stray shot from the assault rifle that Bobby had fired, but so far all that missing part seemed to do was make one small area of the screen appear fuzzy to us. "It's already unlocked, so I don't need to get any access codes or security passwords"

"If at all possible, I'd like to get some sort of GPS tracker on the Helicarrier that those guys were talking about. Other than that, a quick check that there isn't another base like this one that makes suits" The first two easily slid into my head as to what was immediately necessary, as there likely was only so much we could gain from the computer before we had to head out. As much as we could have spent days alone getting information from that computer, we still had to be back at the company in a reasonable time to get another location... Something which my mind was already working on, looking at the Helicarrier information in earnest.

Before Trent got too far in getting the information from the computer, a message appeared on the screen saying that we were being contacted by another base. Trent froze on the spot, looking at me for advice on what he was supposed to do. Ignoring the call would no doubt tip off whoever was calling us that something was going on there, but due to the very little amount of female Alpha in existence it wasn't likely that I could fool them with my own voice.

"...What-What do I do?" Trent stammered a little as the message softly beeped and waited for a response, but I just calmly put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. Freaking out wouldn't help out our situation after all.

"Everyone, be silent please. Malaki, come over here for me" I gave out both orders, everyone pausing wherever they were in the room, it being utterly silent except for the sloshing sounds of Malaki stepping through the blood to stand directly behind myself and Trent. After collecting a small notepad and a pencil from a nearby desk, I signalled for Trent to accept the call without footage.

"Hawk, what's going on over there? Our monitors are saying that everyone except for you are all dead" Some Alpha started to talk to us over the intercom, and something about the name they said seemed to ring a bell for me. After some deliberation, I remembered the Alpha in the hallway mentioning that he was supposed to be looking for someone called Hawk, which likely meant that Hawk was the man Tanner had knocked out at the entrance to the base. I started to scribble something on the notepad, carefully remembering all things that I had heard being mentioned by the people in the base to establish a believable lie. "Not to mention, your vitals are quite slow yourself"

I gently held out the notepad in front of Malaki, making a particular effort to point towards the part of it which told him to act injured. He carefully read it before daring to open his mouth, but already doing a good job in his acting by taking in pained gasps.

"We got attacked by... Ow, by a bunch of angry Beta. We don't know what they wanted, but they... They kept yelling about how we killed their family... Something about a Helicarrier?" Malaki read the note perfectly, putting in believable gasping for air in between certain parts of the sentences, painting the invisible picture that he had been shot just like the rest of his brethren.

"Damn it! I didn't think the people on that Helicarrier even managed to get communication out when we stormed it!" Whoever we were talking to seemed to be a part of the team who had stormed the Helicarrier, which led me to another idea. I scribbled hastily on the notepad to talk to Trent without speaking aloud, asking the Omega if there was any chance he could trace the call that we were receiving. Trent nodded his head, quickly getting to work. "Did you see where they went? A particular direction?"

"...West, over the Gafi desert towards the city" Malaki repeated that phrase from my next lot of scribbles on the notebook, despite the fact he seemed confused with my choice of what to say. After all, we had just come from the Gafi desert, so it was going to make it more difficult to return that way.

"Got it! Hold tight, we'll get those fuckers!"

Trent managed to get a lock on to the location of the caller before they hung up, it showing a place in the middle of our atmosphere, lingering above the Isles of Centica. It wasn't even that far up, which meant that getting there in something like the Banshee was completely viable... Which was another thing that increased my idea that taking it over for ourselves was viable. Trent linked the GPS location to a kind of electronic watch that he was wearing on his wrist, which meant that we had everything from that computer that we needed.

"Not to question that, especially considering the way you managed to get through that without giving away that it was us, but weren't we supposed to be going back over the Gafi desert?" Kevin asked me, clearly not getting my plan on how we were supposed to get back to the company if the Alpha were going to be there.

"We still have over five days to get back to the company, so we can actually take an alternate route back" Marvin was a bit better on the wavelength, showing quite easily that he and I still worked quite similarly. After politely excusing himself past Trent to the computer, he opened the map of our planet, soon after making some lines to gesture the direction he was thinking of. "If we cut South-West into the forest of Lomu for about one or two full days, then we should be able to come out here with only a couple of hours needed to get back to the city"

"Exactly, and the forest can give us some well needed cover against any sort of prying eyes" It was exactly what I wanted to have on the way back, especially now that we knew that they seemed to have some sort of heart monitor on their own troops. The more we did this the more it seemed bleak, but there was no way we were going to be giving up now. "Everybody do a quick search of this room for anything useful to us, and let's move out before the sun sets"


	50. Son of Man

As we left the base I gave the order to Gunner that he should shoot the man still unconscious at the front door of the base, as he had seen our faces before Tanner had knocked him out. Besides, it wouldn't tip off the Alpha who were still monitoring his vitals, as my communication attempt with them had left them with the imagined image that Hawk was injured. To them, he likely had just proceeded to bleed out in the base, all traces of our break in vanishing without a trace. To our opponents it seemed like a group of ghosts had blown into the base, taking the Omega and weapons from there and leaving without a single trace of who we were, leaving only destruction behind us.

If you had asked me in the beginning stages of working at P.W.C. whether I would have enjoyed such a personalised attack on people who had wronged me, you likely would have gotten a horrified response. But after what I had been through, what I had learned of things they had done to others - let alone people I knew personally - I felt all that semblance of sympathy for them vanishing. I just had to look at one of my companions and remember stories they had told me personally for the conviction to surge through me, something that I knew would be able to carry me over the finish line if I needed to. Stumbling into a war wasn't exactly my aim at the beginning of my career at the company, but with the lord as my witness; I was certainly going to fight.

Despite the lofty claims of the numerous bases located in the forest of Lomu, it seemed as if the Alpha were feeling far tamer than they were before. Once burned twice shy, as the saying went; our group of fourteen could notice that there hardly were any Alpha actually roaming around in those woods on foot (the trees were too dense for most vehicles or aircraft as it was, so we didn't have to worry about them chasing after us in a vulture or something similar). The very rare times that we did run into a patrolling group of Alpha, all we had to do was climb a nearby tree and leap from branch to branch over their heads, as they never really learned to look up when they were searching.

...This only went wrong one time, as Tanner had been a bit too ambitious in leaping from one tree to another the second time around. He thudded against the tree trunk with such a force, gasping in a high tone about 'family jewels', before nearly crumpling into a ball and falling out of the tree. Malaki and Marvin managed to catch him before he did actually tumble out, with several other men giving him sympathetic looks that seemed to say that they understood the feeling. Mayu and I didn't really understand what he was going on about, but Amanda and Katra (who had an older brother and had several boyfriends in the past respectively) simply sighed before shaking their heads; informing us that it was 'a man's problem' and that it wasn't that important.

Other than that minor incident, the two day excursion through the Lomu forest was perfectly fine, a nice little holiday in comparison to the other things we had been up to in the last week (namely the two bases we had broken in, nearly dying several times over). When we stopped for the second night near the edge of the forest, I found myself getting a little distracted with plans on how to take over the helicarrier. Trent had managed to snag the plans off the base computer for me, and I had been spending a number of hours poring over the schematics; only faltering when I was interrupted by one of our newest additions to the team.

"You've been staring at those plans for god only knows how long" Corey peered over my shoulder at the brightly lit up holographic plans in my hands, his long hair just barely tickling my shoulder as I turned to look at him. "I would have thought that you'd be 'catching a moment alone' with your boyfriend, kind of like the others are doing"

It was true; the short sporadic journey seemed to bring out the romantic nature in the others; with Mayu, Katra and Amanda taking the nightly stop to seek out their romantic interests. It wasn't that shocking to see that Connor, Tanner and Gunner had been looking for them as well, as I had dropped some not-so-subtle hints their way that the women were invested in them beyond just as friends. Even Trent and Malaki were distracted, lingering near a tree trunk together, trying to learn about the other.

I couldn't quite tell from afar how things were going between the possible couples, various different signals seemed to be exuded from either person in their duos, but I knew better than to stick my nose further into whatever they were doing. Instead, I became curious about those who didn't seem to have a particular preference for someone; namely the person who had sought me out in the first place.

"Nobody here is your type, I'm guessing?" I was interested to know why Corey was looking a little out of place compared to the others. He wasn't the only one, Kevin, Bobby and Marvin also seemed more preoccupied with keeping watch in the center of our camp, but there was something slightly different in the bored expression that Corey was carrying around on his face. His response seemed to indicate that I was somewhat close to the truth, as he gave a disinterested 'meh' to my question. "Because of gender, or..."

"More along the lines of 'relationships sound like too much work'" Corey sighed, his eyes following his friend Trent for a moment. His fellow Omega looked like he was really smitten with Malaki, laughing just that bit louder than he would with anyone else regardless of how bad the jokes seemed to be. From what I could pick apart on his face, he wasn't really annoyed with his friend finding love or attraction for someone, but he definitely didn't seem to get all the hype behind it. "Don't get me wrong, I've been attracted to people in the past, but it's just... Never really been worth the effort"

"Would you consider it if the right person came to you?" I asked our of genuine curiosity, hoping that my questions wouldn't seem too probing for him. Something in my tone of voice or words must have told him that I wasn't judging him for his decision to not have a partner, as he actually seemed to think the question over with sincerity.

"...Maybe" Corey eventually seemed to settle on the non-committal answer, proving that he wasn't completely certain about anything. He was truly what my father would have described as a 'free spirit', letting things adjust and change in his life as it happened. No planning for the future, no worrying about the past, just living in its purest form... And honestly, it was very awe inspiring to find someone who truly lived that way. "Currently I only have one main goal, and that's to help you end this war"

"Any secondary ones?" I put away the hologram display of the helicarrier, as I was likely just going to tire myself out if I kept at it for too long. When I rose from my sitting position to a standing one, I was a little surprised to notice that Corey was almost exactly my height, our diminutive statures and builds giving away that we had to be the same class type. Not just class type, our brown eyes and hair perhaps even causing some confusion for some people, as from afar we could have been mistaken for siblings. The only difference from behind was our clothing and differing hair styles (his being loose like a lions mane while mine was neatly tucked away), and for a moment it felt like I was looking into a slightly warped mirror rather than looking at another person... Would I have ended up like him had I been taken hostage by Tadashi?

"Ideally I'd like to survive the war. Even more than that, I'd like it if others could survive with me... But I know the first one is going to be hard to accomplish, let alone the second one" He had come through his year ordeal in capture surprisingly well, as he had avoided the typical things such as forced sodomy and torture due to his talents and some well-placed lies. His talents with electronics meant that the Alpha would have been stupid to hurt him lest his creations suffer for it, and simply lying to the Alpha by saying that he was a Beta meant that they lost all interest in doing the... Typical things that Alpha expected Omega to be for. "As for everything else, that's secondary. Right now though, I guess I'm just glad to be alive and free; that's good enough for me"

That discussion got shut short the moment that Paul had imposed a curfew on us all, which meant that if I ever was going to have that talk with Corey again that it would have to happen another time. As I lay in my tent that night, his words seemed to swirl around in my mind. He was purely focused on the war, everything else being handled with the phrases such as 'I'll think about it later'. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that I was quite similar to him in certain ways, as there were things that I hadn't even thought about, the majority of them being pushed aside in place of preparing for the war.

Was I planning on marrying Paul before or after the war? Did I even want to marry him in the first place, or was I going to be content with one of us biting the other's bond site? Would we ever want kids, and if yes; when? Was I going to spend more time on ensuring that the others in my away team got their own happy endings with their romantic interests? Those were some of the several questions that seemed to spring up, and I didn't have answers for any of them. Of course I didn't; it took two to tango in a relationship, and it was impossible for Paul to read my mind or vice versa at that point in time.

When I turned my head to the side to see if Paul was awake next to me, his closed eyes and gentle breathing sounds spelled out that he wasn't. I decided that it wouldn't be fair to wake him up to talk to him about those things (as doing so would have been near impossible without also waking up Corey, who slept on the other side of me in that tent), instead filing them in a metaphorical folder in the recesses of my mind to ask him later about. While I did want to focus on the war, I didn't want to consider everything with Paul as something "secondary". After nestling a little closer to Paul that night, I fell asleep to the sound of the trees shaking in the breeze.

The following dawn came by, all fourteen of us getting up with a spring in our step. It was undeniable that there was a excitement buzzing through our group, as the idea of getting back to the company well within the week time limit I had set up was like music to our ears. Even the encroaching rain didn't seem to put a damper on anyone's mood, our group being fed and packed up in record time. There even was a short moment where we raced each other through the trees (it wasn't a real surprise that Malaki was winning that one hands down, and it was even less of a surprise to see that Corey and I lagged behind the most in that), but all of our jovial attitude seemed to sink like stones around the Isles of Centica when we actually reached the edge of the forest and looked upon the short expanse of desert.

"...Acid rain" Connor sighed deeply when he spotted the tell-tale signs of hissing droplets out into the desert, grinding our progress to a complete halt. It wasn't even like it was a completely unknown factor for the Gafi desert, as it did happen a lot more often on our planet than with other planets in our solar system, but it certainly was bad timing. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not exactly planning on getting melted skin in our journey back"

"It would probably destroy our new weapons as well" Gunner gingerly tried to hide his heavy pistol in his pants at his back, but even then the only thing stopping the sizzling rain from reaching it was a thin shirt.

"Any ideas Mila?" Amanda asked me softly, looking through her first aid kit to see if she could find any sort of protective acid resistant blanket in there. Sure, moving with two people at a time under the rain would have been horrendously slow (even if we were excluding the fact that one of those two people would have to return the same way with the blanket), it was still better than waiting the entire period for the rain to leave. That plan was doomed to failure from the start however, as Amanda shook her head to signify that she couldn't find such a blanket in her first aid kit.

I looked upwards at the tree that we were all standing under, being protected from the painful rain from the wide leaves and thick foliage. The only reason that the forest of Lomu didn't suffer under the rain was because the trees had built natural defences against the harsh chemicals falling from the sky a long time ago. I was just thinking about how we could use the branches in a weaved pattern to make a makeshift umbrella out of them (it wasn't going to be ideal, as the droplets would likely just roll off the leaves rather than repel it like a weather shield would), when someone out of my group seemed to spot something in the distance.

"Wait, do you guys see the building over there?" Bobby pointed towards something in the misty distance, and when the rest of us squinted we could barely notice the outline of a very old wooden dojo just a short run away from where we were. It wasn't the best plan ever, but it sounded far more viable than tearing branches off and making an umbrella seemed like it would be. "If we run, we'll likely just get some irritation on our skin but no lasting damage"

"Tell that to my delicate skin bro, I don't have an extra layer of grime to sizzle off like the rest of you fools!" Kevin snuck in some of his typical humour, and this time it seemed to land alright because there were a number of people who did actually laugh in response to what he said. I had a feeling it was mainly from people sarcastically agreeing that Kevin had skin that was too delicate, but it didn't matter; the mood had lifted a little bit more than before he had made the joke.

"Keep your heads down when we run through, it'll help keep the acid from getting into your eyes. If something does end up landing in your eye, try not to blink; it'll just make it worse" I gave out some tips that I remembered being told from my own father, as my childhood home had been far to the north of the city; so technically it also belonged in the Gafi desert. "Let's go"

I was the first one to rush out from underneath the trees, as I had the most experience behind running in the acid rain. My confidence to charge forward ended up giving the others to follow behind me, their footsteps gliding through the sand just mere footfalls away from my own. Just as the tingling and slight bubbling on my skin was beginning to become too much to bear, I felt the door of the dojo right underneath my fingertips.


End file.
